GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) — A beef production plant in Green Bay has become the latest to shut down due to coronavirus infections among employees.
JBS USA announced Sunday that the JBS Packerland plant would be closed temporarily. As of Monday, 255 employees at the plant tested positive for COVID-19, said Brown County Health Department spokeswoman Claire Paprocki. There were also 130 confirmed cases among workers at meatpacker American Foods Group in Green Bay and another 17 employees at sausage maker Salm Partners in Denmark, about 20 miles away, Paprocki said.
There were 849 confirmed cases in Brown County and there have been two deaths, Paprocki said.
The JBS Packerland plant employs more than 1,200 people and feeds nearly 3.2 million people per day, the company said. Employees will be paid during the closure, the Green Bay Press Gazette reported.
JBS earlier closed plants in Souderton, Pennsylvania; Greeley, Colorado; and Worthington, Minnesota. The first two plants have since reopened.
JBS and other meat processors say they’ve taken a variety of steps to reduce the chances of workers spreading the virus to each other, including adding plexiglass barriers between workers, stressing social distancing and providing personal protective gear.
