Speaker 1: It's Wednesday, April. I'm Oscar Ramirez from the Daily Dive
Speaker 1: podcast in Los Angeles, and this is your daily coronavirus update.
Speaker 1: Worries about the food supply are growing after the world's
Speaker 1: biggest pork processing plan had to close its doors due
Speaker 1: to coronavirus. Smithfield Foods in South Dakota has seen nearly
Speaker 1: three hundred of its employees contract COVID nineteen and will
Speaker 1: be closed for at least two weeks. South Dakota did
Speaker 1: not have a stay at home order in place, and
Speaker 1: workers there had been calling for more personal protective equipment.
Speaker 1: Alex Gangitano, reporter at The Hill, joins us for more.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us, Alex, thanks for having me. I'm
Speaker 1: going to talk about this pork processor, Smithfield Foods in
Speaker 1: South Dakota. There's concerns about food supply right now after
Speaker 1: an outbreak. They're forced them to close down. This outbreak
Speaker 1: of COVID nineteen. Their reports have said that about three
Speaker 1: hundred of the employees at this pork processing plant have
Speaker 1: come down with coronavirus and it led them to close
Speaker 1: down who knows how long, probably at least a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks, maybe so. People can get better and they
Speaker 1: can clean up, but there's concerns that this pork processor
Speaker 1: could affect the food supply. I think they're the biggest
Speaker 1: pork processing facility in the country. They account for up
Speaker 1: to five of US pork production. Alex tell us a
Speaker 1: little bit more about this. Smith Field itself is the
Speaker 1: world's biggest pork processor, and this closed plant, like you said,
Speaker 1: is five percent of the pork production in the US.
Speaker 1: So the CEO of Smithfield has said it will be
Speaker 1: at least two weeks that they're closed, and he actually
Speaker 1: right away warned of potential meat shortages. We've seen type
Speaker 1: in food cargild GBS. Other meat facilities also have to
Speaker 1: shutter some of their plants because workers have gotten sick.
Speaker 1: The interesting thing about this Smithfield plant is it actually
Speaker 1: accounts for over half of South Dakota's overall coronavirus cases
Speaker 1: are just workers at this plant alone. So it will
Speaker 1: be interesting to see, you know, how long they actually
Speaker 1: do shut down. I wonder if two weeks was thinking
Speaker 1: a little too positively here with how bad the situation is,
Speaker 1: especially considering the report to hear about people who actually
Speaker 1: get sick. Two weeks is a conservative estimate of them
Speaker 1: getting better, so it could be longer for the workers themselves.
Speaker 1: And a lot of the conversation around this goes back
Speaker 1: to ppe personal protective equipment. There was calls before this
Speaker 1: actually happened for more of that equipment for these processing
Speaker 1: plant workers, and they said that there's no social distancing
Speaker 1: for them there at the plant. They're working in very
Speaker 1: close proximity to other people. They're already calls, like you
Speaker 1: said that situations that these plants before we even knew
Speaker 1: what the coronavirus was, were too tight of quarters, you know,
Speaker 1: and people who were working on top of each other
Speaker 1: and didn't feel safe. And now there aren't masked for them.
Speaker 1: The workers aren't standing six ft apart from one another.
Speaker 1: They're still using their break rooms, which they're all in
Speaker 1: a closed room together that is probably relatively small in
Speaker 1: comparison to the people have to be having to stand
Speaker 1: six feet away. So we've heard calls now from consumer
Speaker 1: advocacy groups and labor groups that have said, what's up
Speaker 1: to the Trump administration and the Labor Department to provide
Speaker 1: these especially because these are truly essential workers, you know,
Speaker 1: in order to keep the food supply in our country.
Speaker 1: Flowing and make people feel comfortable about the food supply
Speaker 1: and the safety of the meat they're buying at the
Speaker 1: grocery store and the pork they're buying. There needs to
Speaker 1: be these personal protective equipment available to these folks and
Speaker 1: more precautions in place. The FDA has tried to calm
Speaker 1: those worries about people getting sick from buying these products
Speaker 1: and whatnot. People have said it's more dangerous to go
Speaker 1: to the actual supermarket and pick up these products than
Speaker 1: actually getting sick from the food itself, so there should
Speaker 1: be no worry on that front, at least. I spoke
Speaker 1: to a scientists who agreed with the FDA and said
Speaker 1: that he is still actively looking for evidence of food
Speaker 1: born coronavirus transmission, you know, just to be extremely shure,
Speaker 1: but basically, at this point, is more dangerous to go
Speaker 1: to the grocery store. I guess that get sick by
Speaker 1: another person that might be in there and infect you
Speaker 1: than it is to eat meat that you buy at
Speaker 1: the grocery store. And so I think people hopefully feel
Speaker 1: better about that, But then there's always the general fear
Speaker 1: and anxiety that so much of the country is experiencing
Speaker 1: right now that you cure closures plants like this, you
Speaker 1: hear about these cases that so many of the workers
Speaker 1: having it, and so maybe you're less likely to buy
Speaker 1: these foods just out of fear, which doesn't help of
Speaker 1: course getting food and people staying satisfied, but also the
Speaker 1: overall supply chain and getting food moving off the shelves
Speaker 1: and into people's homes. So you know, it hurts all
Speaker 1: of that, right, and you know people have that image
Speaker 1: in their heads already empty shelves in the stores, and
Speaker 1: so concerns about food supply are legitimate. Right now, it
Speaker 1: doesn't seem like there's an emergency on that front, but
Speaker 1: who knows how long this last. I know the National
Speaker 1: Park Producers Council already said that their industry has been
Speaker 1: decimated by this. Shutdowns, restaurant closures, labor shorders, all of that,
Speaker 1: and wrapped in all of this, we look at a
Speaker 1: bunch of states. I think the statistic was Americans are
Speaker 1: at stay at home orders. South Dakota. The governor there
Speaker 1: was one of the ones that had resisted ordering a
Speaker 1: stay at home order. This was Governor Christie Nohem, So
Speaker 1: she's getting a lot of heat from that as well.
Speaker 1: This processing plants in particular is located in Sioux Falls,
Speaker 1: and the mayor there said that I'm trying to do
Speaker 1: the best I can, but without a state wide order,
Speaker 1: it's basically means nothing. Her point was that situation at
Speaker 1: one part of South Dakota is obviously extremely far away
Speaker 1: from another town in South Dakota, So why trees and
Speaker 1: all at the same level as opposed to having a
Speaker 1: more targeted approach. But then there's also the fact that
Speaker 1: it might take somebody who lives in one part of
Speaker 1: the state could be a matter of miles away from
Speaker 1: the closest hospital, and so you have to think about
Speaker 1: it from that level too. That's where she's getting a
Speaker 1: lot of put back. You know, in such rural states
Speaker 1: right now, hospital, the hospital beds and workers aren't as
Speaker 1: plungey fall if there's an outbreak like that we've already seen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Governor no Um said that South Dakota is not New
Speaker 1: York City, so that's probably influencing her decision on that front.
Speaker 1: I think the biggest thing there to happen recently she
Speaker 1: announced a clinical trial of high droxy chloroquine, So we'll
Speaker 1: see how this works out. But I know that the
Speaker 1: work processing plant right now is closed and these concerns
Speaker 1: about food supply are gonna only get bigger depending on
Speaker 1: how long it stays closed. Alex Gangitano, reporter at the Hill,
Speaker 1: thank you very much for joining us. Yeah, thanks for
Speaker 1: having me. Have a good one. I'm Oscar Ramrors and
Speaker 1: this has been your daily coronavirus update. Don't forget that.
Speaker 1: For today's big news stories, you can check me out
Speaker 1: on the Daily Dive podcast every Monday through Friday. So
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