The News & Observer is reporting (subscription required) that the Pilgrim’s Pride poultry processing plant in Sanford is home to one of 23 North Carolina COVID-19 outbreaks related to food production.
Pilgrim’s Pride had been the subject of other reporting by WRAL, but The N&O’s story explicitly identifies several of the food processing plants in question, as well as their counties. Statewide, 1,340 employees have been impacted, the report indicates. And while the story doesn’t disclose the number of COVID positive workers, it does indicate that the numbers are high. From the story:
*Lee County: Pilgrim’s Pride in Sanford. Piedmont Health CEO Brian Toomey told The N&O that their testing rates of Sanford workers have been high. They have tested over 150 Pilgrim’s Pride and Mountaire Farms workers with a 60% rate of positive cases, but the total number of cases is unknown.
The story also touches on neighboring Chatham County, where it indicates that Mountaire Farms had 74 cases.
We would like to know their PPE used in the plants, if workers were checked for fevers before entering the plants, if source and tracking is being used and can/will it be made public.
My wife works at pilgrim sanford plant, the April 14 early that morning she requested permission to go home because she was feeling sick with sintoma, and she was not allowed to go home till 3.30 pm, and they said that she had nothing, so keep working, is the only answer, next day she went to Piedmont health clinic and she was tested, I had same simptoms, so the test was positive, also I was told I was positive, we did the stay home for two weeks, thanks to God we are fine now but she was asked to go back to work and she was not ready to work because the body of her and mine were so weak, how can you work in those conditions‽ The donor see a human feelings, they think workers are animals with out feelings, so sad.
That is terrible. I do hear that it leaves the body muscles weak afterwards. Every person takes a different amount of time to recover. Maybe a doctor can give a medical note saying she needs more time to recover. I wonder if you’re eligible for workmans compensation since you caught it at work.
What safety precautions do they have in place now?
Wonder what percentage of their staff is Lee Counties 280 Covid cases?