Why Meat Plants are shutting down. [View all]

[James48]

First- context. Here is Trump’s bizarre wandering answer to a reporters question about the sudden appearance of Covid-19 in the food industry- specifically meat packing plants.
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OFFICIAL WHITE HOUSE TRANSCRIPT — UNEDITED.
REPORTER: I wanted to ask you specifically about one industry in particular, and that’s food-processing plants. Is there a priority to get testing at food-processing plants all across the country?
TRUMP: "Well, you’re asking that because of what happened — it’s a fair question, too — what happened in Denver. Because in Denver, I’ve never seen — I said, “What’s going on?” We’re looking at this graph where everything’s looking beautiful and it’s coming down and then you got this one spike. It’s — I said, “What happened to Denver?”
And many people, very quickly, and they — by the way, they were on it like, so fast, you wouldn’t believe it. They knew every aspect. They had people go and — not only testing, “Who did you see? Where were you? How many people did you meet? Were you out to dinner in somebody else’s home? Where were you?” Where did — where did this number of people come from? How did — they are totally on it.
Now, this just happened. I just saw it this morning. I’m looking at everything smooth, going down, topping out. And then you have this one spike in Denver. It’s like, where did this come from?
So we’ll be looking at that. And we don’t want cases like that happening. This was — but this — this is the kind of thing can happen. This is very complex.
This is a very brilliant enemy. You know, it’s a brilliant enemy. They develop drugs like the antibiotics. You see it. Antibiotics used to solve every problem. Now one of the biggest problems the world has is the germ has gotten so brilliant that the antibiotic can’t keep up with it. And they’re constantly trying to come up with a new — people go to a hospital and they catch — they go for a heart operation — that’s no problem, but they end up dying from — from problems. You know the problems I’m talking about. There’s a whole genius to it.
We’re fighting — not only is it hidden, but it’s very smart. Okay? It’s invisible and it’s hidden, but it’s — it’s very smart. And you see that in a case like a Denver.
But, you know, I think we’re doing well, and they’re on Denver like you wouldn’t believe. I came in this morning; it was a flurry. I said what’s going on? They said, “Denver.” I said, “What happened to Denver?” Because Denver was doing pretty well. And they’ve got that under control. But, yeah, that would be a case where you do some very big testing."- Donald J. Trump, genius.


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If you've made it this far, please keep in mind that the Smithfield meat processing plant that has become a COVID-19 hotspot, and precipitated the reporter's question, is the Smithfield plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, not Denver. And antibiotics have never solved viruses.

But the next thing you need to realize, is that,

1. USDA Meat inspectors have no PPE.
In fact, they were ordered by USDA Management NOT to wear masks.

2. When the Smithfield plant was closed, the USDA ordered its meat inspectors to go to other Meat Packing plants, including JBS in Greely, Colorado. Guess what? Now JBS has a huge outbreak of Covid-19, and is shut down.

When the South Dakota plant closed down, they ordered the USDA inspectors into other meat packing plants.

And with them- went the virus, carried with the USDA inspectors, who infected other plants.

After the Souix Falls Smithfield plant was shut down, the USDA sent meat inspectors from that plant to Greely, Colorado. Who promptly transmitted the virus to the workers there.

Read more:
https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2020/04/usda-relocating-its-food-inspectors-one-hot-spot-next-more-employees-get-sick/164722/