page_title: Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the meat industry in the United States
section_title: CDC advice to meatpackers
hierarchical_section_title: Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the meat industry in the United States / CDC advice to meatpackers
caption_attribution_description: English: COVID-19 Meat and Poultry Processing Workers and Employers Interim Guidance: Modify the alignment of workstations, including along processing lines, if feasible, so that workers are at least six feet apart in all directions (e.g., side-to-side and when facing one another), when possible. Ideally, modify the alignment of workstations so that workers do not face one another. Consider using markings and signs to remind workers to maintain their location at their station away from each other and practice social distancing on breaks.
context_page_description: The meat industry has been severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. Outbreaks of the virus have taken place in factories operated by the meat packing industry and the poultry processing industry. These outbreaks affected dozens of plants, leading to closures of some factories and disruption of others, and posed a significant threat to the meat supply in the United States. By April 27, there were at least 115 facilities with cases across 23 states, and at least 4,913 workers diagnosed positive with COVID-19, or approximately 3 percent of the workforce, with 20 deaths reported. By May 5, over 10,000 meatpacking plant workers in 29 states and working at 170 plants had tested positive for the coronavirus. At least 45 of those meat industry workers had died. As of May 20, at least 15,300 workers have been infected with COVID-19 at 192 different meatpacking plants in the United States, based on ongoing reporting by the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting and USA Today. At least 63 of those workers have died from the disease.
context_section_description: Meat and poultry processing facilities are considered critical infrastructure workers, and CDC advises that they may be permitted to continue work following potential exposure to COVID-19, provided they remain asymptomatic and additional precautions are implemented to protect them and the community.  However, their work environments may contribute substantially to their potential exposures, as they often work close to one another on processing lines during prolonged work shifts.
  For engineering controls, CDC and OSHA recommend configuring communal work environments so that workers are spaced at least six feet apart including along processing lines, using physical barriers such as strip curtains or plexiglass to separate workers from each other, and ensuring adequate ventilation that minimizes air from fans blowing from one worker directly at another worker.  For administrative controls, they recommend staggering workers' arrival, break, and departure times, cohorting workers so they are always assigned to the same shifts with the same coworkers, encouraging single-file movement through the facility, avoiding carpooling to and from work, and considering a program of screening workers before entry into the workplace and setting criteria for return to work of recovered workers and for exclusion of sick workers.
  For personal protective equipment, they recommend face shields and considering allowing voluntary use of filtering facepiece respirators such as N95 masks.  They also recommend wearing cloth face masks that should be replaced if they become wet, soiled, or otherwise visibly contaminated during the work shift, although cloth face masks are not considered to be personal protective equipment.
  The CDC's advice may be difficult to implement, as facilities are designed for maximum efficiency with workers working close together. Wearing a mask can be hard during the physically challenging and messy work. Installing recommended ventilation may be expensive for older plants. As of late May, employees at meat plants were still "standing elbow-to-elbow" and coming to work with symptoms for fear of not being paid. Physical barriers and face shields were used, though some masks were reported to be of low quality.
caption: An infographic on ways to control COVID-19 hazards in meat processing facilities[42]
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