NEW: I’ve been mapping outbreaks of Covid-19 in the food system since April 22. In my latest story for @FERNnews, I crunched all that data and made 9 charts to help demonstrate the spread of the virus among food chain workers.

A thread… https://thefern.org/2020/05/charting-the-spread-of-covid-19-in-the-food-system/

When I first published our map of Covid-19 outbreaks in the food system on April 22, there were about 1,950 cases among meatpacking, food processing, and farmworkers.

Today, there are over 16,400 — a more than eight-fold increase in less than a month. 66 workers have died.

We’ve counted outbreaks at 214 meat and food processing facilities since April 22, and the number is rising. We’ve added 10 outbreaks in the last 7 days alone.

The disease has been slower to reach farms and food production facilities, but Covid-19 outbreaks are happening there, too. We’ve counted 14 outbreaks, and nearly 600 sickened workers, since the beginning of May.

In April, many meatpacking plants closed in an attempt to slow the spread of Covid-19 among their workers. But on April 28, Trump signed an executive order to keep the plants open, and now nearly all those plants are reopened. Many workers say they still don’t have adequate PPE.

Some types of meatpacking plants have had more cases of Covid-19 than others. Pork plants account for nearly twice as many cases — nearly 6,000 — as any other type of meatpacking facility.

And some meatpackers have seen more Covid-19 outbreaks than others. Three companies — Tyson, JBS, and Smithfield — account for over 45 percent of all the meatpacking plants with Covid-19 outbreaks.

Tyson Foods alone accounts for a third of the nation’s total number of Covid-19 cases at meatpacking plants. Tyson, JBS, and Smithfield together account for 53 percent of all cases of Covid-19 among meatpacking plant workers.

We’ve mapped Covid-19 outbreaks at meatpacking plants in 28 states, with North Carolina, Georgia, Iowa, Pennsylvania, and Illinois seeing the highest numbers.

And Iowa, Nebraska, and North Carolina account for the highest numbers of meatpacking workers who have contracted Covid-19.

The three states total over 5,300 cases, or more than 36 percent of the food industry workers who have contracted the disease nationally.

My main takeaways: Covid-19 cases among food system workers are still rising. Just a few companies account for a huge percentage of the cases among meatpacking workers. And while some states are harder hit, a majority now have outbreaks linked to food facilities.

/end of thread