By Carol Vaughn —
A team from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention arrived on the Eastern Shore Tuesday to help deal with the rise in COVID-19 cases among poultry processing plant workers.
Gov. Ralph Northam said Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware are cooperating to address the problem, which he said extends across the Delmarva Peninsula.
“Our teams across Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware, and the CDC, worked throughout the weekend on this,” Northam said during a press briefing Monday.
He said Eastern Shore Health District data last week began to show a rising number of COVID-19 cases among Accomack County poultry plant workers.
There are 10 poultry processing plants in Virginia, mainly in the Shenandoah Valley and on the Eastern Shore, which has two plants that together employ around 3,040 people.
Poultry plant employees make up almost 7% of the Eastern Shore of Virginia population — and nearly 12% of Accomack County’s workforce, according to the county’s latest comprehensive financial report.
Almost 70% of people who have tested positive in the Eastern Shore Health District are African American, according to the Virginia Department of Health — that is compared to African American residents accounting for 29% of Accomack County’s population and 34% of Northampton’s, according to the U.S. census.
“These poultry plants are a vital part of our food supply chain, providing food to millions of people on the East Coast, but the health of the people who work in these plants is also critically important,” Northam said, adding, “While the companies here in Virginia are taking additional safety measures inside their facilities to protect their workers and keep the plants operational, I am very concerned about the continued rise in cases.”
As of Wednesday, Accomack County reported 229 cases, with 18 hospitalized and four deaths.
Northampton had 36 cases, with three hospitalized and zero deaths, according to the Virginia Department of Health.
“Time is of the essence to stop the spread and protect our workers,” Northam said in a press briefing Wednesday.
Northam, who is from the Eastern Shore, called it “a rural area, with excellent access to health care,”adding, “But I know how quickly our medical resources there could be overwhelmed with a surge in cases.”
Riverside Shore Memorial Hospital has 52 inpatient rooms, 10 of which are ICU rooms, and a 13-bed emergency department, according to the Riverside website.
Northam said he, Gov. Hogan of Maryland, and Gov. Carney of Delaware wrote a letter Friday to President Trump, asking the federal government for help “and for a fully coordinated approach in dealing with this rapidly evolving situation.”
“Because the poultry economy on the Delmarva Peninsula is so interconnected, a coordinated approach is critical,” Northam said.
The CDC committed to deploy teams to all three states, according to Northam.
A team arrived in Virginia Tuesday, and met Wednesday morning with local health and worker safety teams, Northam said Wednesday.
The team includes epidemiologists, contact tracers, and language specialists who speak Haitian Creole. Team members will work with local and state health departments.
“We expect the CDC team to do an overall assessment of the situation and help with wider-scale testing to determine the actual scope of the problem. That will allow us to take the most appropriate mitigation steps to contain the outbreak on the Eastern Shore,” Northam said.
Northam said people in his administration spoke Sunday with corporate leaders from Perdue and Tyson.
“I’d like to thank them for their willingness to cooperate with us and to share needed information,” he said.
The CDC Sunday, after the three governors’ request, released new guidelines for meat processing facilities in the United States, where a number of outbreaks have happened.
“These guidelines describe how plants should reconfigure their spaces so that workers are able to be separated and protected from each other,” Northam said Wednesday.
“I appreciate that guidance. I want to be clear that my number one concern here is our workers. Every one of them is a human being, whose health deserves our protection,” he said, adding that most poultry workers are low-income and from communities of color.
“These factors place them at a higher risk. I am very concerned for them,” he said.
Northam spoke Wednesday with Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue about the situation, after President Trump signed an executive order using the Defense Production Act to mandate that meat processing plants owned by Tyson Foods and other companies remain open to protect the nation’s food supply during the pandemic.
The order provides additional liability protection to the companies, according to a New York Times report, which cited a senior administration official.
“I sincerely hope that with this executive order, the President is signaling that the federal government will play a much larger role in keeping the employees of these meat processing plants safe and provide federal support to ensure every worker has protection, including adequate PPE,” Northam said Wednesday.
He instructed the Virginia Department of Health and the Department of Labor and Industry to work with the plants to implement CDC guidelines.
“We should know more about the situation with Virginia’s poultry plants in the next few days,” Northam said, adding, “…We fully expect that all employees in these food processing plants will be tested, and that those who need medical care have adequate access and a safe place to go if they need to be isolated.”
A group of U. S. Senators, including Virginia Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, wrote a letter April 20 to Vice President Mike Pence and other federal officials, asking what actions they are taking to protect essential food supply chain workers and USDA inspectors.
“It is vital that we do everything we can to protect food supply workers and federal employees from COVID-19 infection. Breakdowns in the food supply chain could have significant economic impacts for both consumers and agricultural producers. It is also imperative that precautions are taken to ensure the stability and safety of our food supply,” the letter reads in part.
“During this public health crisis, the White House and your agencies must coordinate with state and local governments and the private sector to take aggressive action to protect essential workers in the food supply chain. We need bold action and creative solutions, including greatly increased testing and tracing of those exposed to the virus in order to stop the spread. This is critically important to protect our essential workforce, our food supply chain, our agricultural economy, and rural America from further damage,” the letter says.
Delmarva Poultry Industry Inc., the Delmarva chicken industry’s trade association, issued a statement Wednesday about the President’s order.
“This executive order will give needed assistance to Delmarva’s chicken processing companies by sending food supply chain resources to plants, giving them even more ways to keep workers safe and protected from coronavirus. By resolving inconsistencies among states in enforcing CDC guidelines, the order is a good first step towards a uniform standard for worker safety during this crisis in meat and chicken processing,” the statement reads in part.
Tyson Foods Chairman John H. Tyson, in a letter published as a full-page advertisement Sunday in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and elsewhere, said the company “is rising to the challenge” during the pandemic.
Tyson said he is grateful for employees, “but most of all I care about their health and safety.”
“They come to work every day to feed our country with safe, sustainable, quality and affordable food,” he wrote.
Tyson said the company “has a responsibility to feed our nation and the world,” and that “government bodies at the national, state, county and city levels must unite in a comprehensive, thoughtful and productive way to allow our team members to work in safety without fear, panic or worry. The private and public sectors must come together.”
He said the food supply chain is vulnerable as the company has had to shut down some facilities.
“As pork, beef, and chicken plants are being forced to close, even for short periods of time, millions of pounds of meat will disappear from the supply chain. As a result, there will be limited supply of our products available in grocery stores until we are able to reopen our facilities that are currently closed,” Tyson wrote.
Tyson Foods in January formed a coronavirus task force and since then put in place numerous safety measures to protect employees, according to the letter.
Additionally, Tyson is waiving the waiting period to qualify for short-term disability for workers, waiving co-pays and deductibles for doctor visits for COVID-19 testing, and paying around $60 million in “thank you” bonuses to 116,000 workers and truckers, among other actions, according to the letter.
