By James Simons-
A total of three meat factories in the UK have so far shut down temporarily due to an outbreak the coronavirus.
The news follows the revelation last night that a meat factory in Cleckheaton l confirmed several cases of coronavirus.
Kober, which supplies Asda and is owned by it, said i will be closed for the next week as a precautionary measure.
Asda have now shut the factory down in order to contain the fresh outbreak, and is expected to re-open next week. Staff in self-isolation will receive full pay.
The company have provided no numbers on how many staff tested positive for Covid-19, or how many deaths have there have resulted from the recent outbreak. Without those numbers, the outbreak remains relatively vague.
However, it was confirmed that around 100 contacts of workers have since been traced after a ‘small number’ of cases.
Another UK’s main supplier of supermarket chicken, 2 Sisters Food Group, said it was closing its huge Anglesey plant for 14 days after 58 people tested positive for coronavirus.
In Wrexham, North East Wales, 38 staff have tested positive at Rowan Foods, which makes food for supermarkets across the UK. Bosses said the cases reflected an increase in the local area rather than a spread within the site.
The reports of new cases in meat processing plants will spark fears about similar outbreaks in U.S meat factories. In the latter, as many as 5,000 meat and poultry workers have contracted Covid-19, according to an estimate last month by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The confined working conditions and long periods spent by workers in close proximity – often 10 to 12 hours per shift – mean meat factories are at substantially heightened risk of spreading the coronavirus through human-to-human transmission, the CDC has said.
Unions have said the living conditions of many low-paid workers in the factories is another contributing factor, as is time spent by colleagues in communal spaces such as locker rooms and shuttle buses.
In the UK, four meat factories are reported to have been affected to date. Three workers died from coronavirus after a small outbreak at a meat processing plant in South Yorkshire last month.
In April, a Twitter user shared a photo of workers at the plant during a shift change, which showed groups congregating near parked cars appearing to be less than two metres apart.
Director of public health at Kirklees Council, Rachel Spencer-Henshall, said: “We were made aware of a number of positive cases of COVID-19 at a workplace in Kirklees. We have been providing support and advice to both the management and employees in order to minimise any further transmission.”