South Idaho meatpacking plant hit with virus outbreak

BURLEY, Idaho (AP) — Dozens of workers at a meatpacking plant in southwestern Idaho have tested positive for COVID-19, health officials said.

The South Central Public Health District said Tuesday that 44 employees at Ida-Beef in the small city of Burley tested positive. None of the workers were hospitalized and there were no fatalities linked to the outbreak.

The plant has temporarily shut down despite an order by President Donald Trump in April requiring meat processing plants to stay open amid concerns over growing coronavirus cases and the impact on the nation’s food supply.

"It’s a slaughterhouse and Trump mandated that the slaughterhouses stay open, but we chose to close ours to get everybody healthy,” said Ida-beef CEO Allan Ward. “We thought we’d give it 10 days plus the long weekend and get everybody healthy. And we’re hoping to get a good crew coming Monday morning to kill cattle.”

It’s the second food processing plant in the region hit with the coronavirus in recent days. At least 50 employees of potato products company Rite Stuff Foods in the nearby community of Jerome tested positive last week.

Community spread of the virus has also been confirmed in five of the eight counties the health district oversees. The region has accounted for the majority of new cases in Idaho over the last week.

Idaho has had 2,626 cases and 79 deaths due to the virus, according to Johns Hopkins University tally on Tuesday.

Idaho is currently in Republican Gov. Brad Little's second stage of a four-stage plan to return to regular activity and recover from the economic damage caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Little scheduled a news conference for Thursday afternoon to announce whether the state will move to the third stage on Saturday.

Each stage is about two weeks long, and advancing through them requires declining infections and a testing strategy to quickly detect potential outbreaks so they can be halted. The readiness of the health care system is another factor.

A surge in new infections could require remaining in one stage longer or reinstating restrictions because of the potential for the health care system to be overwhelmed.

Little on Tuesday was not certain whether he would approve a move into the third stage for Idaho.