Source: WRAL, 5/28/20


Plant employees typically stand shoulder-to-shoulder on their feet for hours at a time, shoving and cutting carcasses. The work causes them to breathe heavily, and if they have COVID-19, they are spreading virus into the air, said Dr. Lisa Gralinski, an assistant professor at the Gillings School of Global Public Health. Gralinski, who has studied coronaviruses since 2008, said these processing facilities house a combination of risk factors. “The virus gets into a meat plant and that can turn disastrous,” Gralinski said. “The cold air is going to be very conducive to keeping the virus viable for longer, so it’s just kind of a bad situation — and unfortunately if we look at the demographics of who tends to be employed in these facilities, they might not have the best access to health care.”

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