Meat worker died too quickly for treatment
The second Wisconsin meatpacking worker confirmed to have died of COVID-19 was a 63-year-old Hispanic man. His condition declined so quickly that he couldn’t receive advanced treatment, records show. His wife watched him die via video.
Meanwhile, the number of infected meatpacking and food processing workers is mounting. At least 835 have tested positive at 16 plants in Wisconsin, according to a count kept by the Journal Sentinel as part of its ongoing investigation into the facilities.
The actual number is likely much higher. The state, many companies and some local health authorities aren’t disclosing figures, preventing residents and plant workers — often immigrants with modest incomes — from learning about the extent of the outbreaks.
Nationwide, at least 4,913 meatpacking and poultry workers have contracted COVID-19, and 20 have died, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But those numbers are from late April and don’t account for any Wisconsin deaths.
The crisis has been long in the making, as food processing workers were told to brave the epidemic and report to work to keep grocery stores stocked. According to workers and advocates, at least four Wisconsin plants didn’t adopt safety measures until it was too late. The federal agency in charge of worker safety had said for weeks it wouldn’t crack down on businesses disregarding safety guidelines.
Now, some Wisconsin counties that are home to these food processing plants are seeing the highest rates of confirmed cases, according to state data.
The second meatpacking worker who died of the virus lived in Twin Lakes in Kenosha County and died on May 1, according to a Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office report.
The medical examiner report doesn’t name his employer, saying only that he worked in a meatpacking plant in the Burlington area. But his age and Hispanic origin match the information in a news release provided Friday by the Kenosha County Joint Information Center, which reports that two workers of Calumet Diversified Meats in Pleasant Prairie, southeast of Burlington, died of the virus.
Kenosha County’s health officer, Jen Freiheit, said she could not confirm the
name of the worker but said he died on May 1.
The Journal Sentinel previously reported a Calumet worker had died April 15, the first known death among meatpacking workers in Wisconsin.
Calumet officials didn’t respond to questions after the first death and didn’t reply to an interview request Friday after the second was revealed.
According to the Milwaukee County medical examiner report, the second worker had visited a walk-in clinic on April 20, complaining of shortness of breath and fatigue. He was hospitalized in Burlington, then transferred to a Milwaukee hospital so that he could receive advanced treatment. But it was too late; his organs were failing, the report said.
His obituary says that he was born in Mexico. He convinced his wife, a city girl, to move to the small town of Twin Lakes where he wanted to raise their family. He enjoyed going fishing and tailgating with his family and grandchildren, watching Brewers games and touring the Green Bay Packers stadium. His favorite pastimes included gardening, biking, dancing and working on cars, the obituary said.
The first Calumet employee who died was also born in Mexico. He was in his early 50s and left behind two daughters and a son, according to his obituary. He hadn’t felt well since April 6, when he stopped going to work.
The Joint Information Center said 135 Calumet employees were tested for the virus, with 22 tests coming back positive. The center added that Calumet shut its processing for one week to disinfect. All employees, the center said, wear masks and face shields.
The center also reported that at least 15 workers of the 419 tested at Kenosha Beef International, also known as Birchwood Foods, had positive results.
Kenosha Beef International CEO Dennis Vignieri said the plant started to adopt COVID-19 safety measures before it had its first confirmed case at the end of March, and then the facility ramped up.
The plant, he said, applied social distancing measures and installed partitions about four weeks ago.
OSHA opened investigations into both companies.
Kenosha County’s information center issued its news release after the Journal Sentinel had reported on the first death, inquired about the second and submitted multiple inquires about the number of workers who tested positive at different plants in the county. Liane Blanck, a project manager with the Division of Health, initially refused to provide any information on cases tied to particular businesses.
Other than the Calumet and Kenosha plants, Freiheit, the county health officer, hasn’t released the number of cases at other food facilities or county totals for these employees.
Good Foods Group told the Journal Sentinel that 34 of its workers in Pleasant Prairie tested positive.
Kenosha County ranks third in the state in the rate of COVID-19 confirmed cases per 100,000 residents and second on the percentage of positive test results among all tests performed.
Secrecy hinders the ability to assess the role of the plants in the increase of cases across Wisconsin and the dangers faced by the workers.
Racine County has the fourth-highest rate of confirmed cases per 100,000 residents in the state and the fourthhighest rate of positive results among all tests performed. But Margaret Gesner, health officer with the Central Racine County Health Department, wouldn’t say how many food processing workers have been infected in county plants, including Echo Lake Foods, the egg products processor in Burlington, where the National Guard has helped with employee testing.
In an email, she wrote: “We recognize the public’s interest in this matter, but we also need to balance the privacy interests of those who have been infected with COVID-19 at the facilities, and identification of individual facilities may allow for the identification of individual employees.”
Food processing facilities typically employ dozens or hundreds of workers. When the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel asked Echo Lake Foods how many of its workers had tested positive, a representative cited privacy reasons and hung up.
Brown County leads the ranking in rates of confirmed cases and positive tests, but its public health department stopped providing updates on cases associated with JBS, American Foods Group and Salm Partners meatpacking plants on Monday. County spokeswoman Claire Paprocki said keeping track of the count was time-consuming. At the time the county stopped updating the data, over 500 workers at the plants had tested positive, nearly 40% of all reported cases. The companies have since declined to provide numbers.
Citing reporting by the Journal Sentinel, Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin sent a letter to the CEOs of JBS, Tyson Foods and Smithfield Foods asking them to follow safety guidelines and share information about confirmed cases with health officials and the public.
“Your employees’ lives, and the health and safety of the surrounding communities in which you operate, depend upon your swift action,” she said.
Carlo Nevicosi, deputy director of Walworth County’s health department, said confirmed cases among Birds Eye plant workers were the biggest factor in the county’s jump in cases. The county ranks fifth in the rate of confirmed cases. Nevicosi said they didn’t learn the scope of the problem until the company reached out around April 19. A clinic in Illinois was testing many of the workers but didn’t alert them of the test results, he said.
It took little more than a week after the second worker at Milwaukee’s Cargill meatpacking plant tested positive for the city’s Health Department to learn that six workers had gotten sick. The city Commissioner of Health, Jeanette Kowalik, ordered it closed effective Wednesday.
The order stated Cargill officials couldn’t reopen the plant until the company facilitated testing for all employees and work stations were at least 6 feet apart, among other requirements.
Cargill spokeswoman Emily Webster said the plant started adopting additional safety measures in March and by early April began providing masks to all employees.
Smithfield Foods meatpacking plant in Cudahy saw its first positive case on March 23 but didn’t start a rolling closure until mid-April. The facility is now open.
As of May 5, 89 of its workers had tested positive, according to the Milwaukee County’s COVID-19 Epidemiology Intel Team. Of the 89 cases, 44 were identified as Hispanic and accounted for 6% of all Hispanics who tested positive in the county. Most lived on Milwaukee’s south side.
Milwaukee County Supervisor Sylvia Ortiz-Velez said some workers may have been infected and then recovered by the time they were all offered testing in late April.
“We will never get the full picture of the problem,” said Ortiz-Velez, whose district includes Milwaukee’s south side.
Haley BeMiller of the Green Bay Press-Gazette, Natalie Brophy of the Fond du Lac Reporter, and John Diedrich and Andrew Mollica of the Journal Sentinel contributed to this report.