Four employees of a major poultry producer’s operations in rural southwest Georgia have died after becoming infected with the coronavirus, a company spokesman said Friday.
Tyson Foods spokesman Gary Mickelson said three of the employees worked at the company’s chicken processing plant in Camilla, while the fourth person worked in a supporting job outside the plant. He declined to say how many workers there have tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the new virus.
American workers who process the nation’s meat have proven especially susceptible to the new virus, as they work shoulder-to-shoulder on production lines. Several US plants have closed because of outbreaks, including a large plant owned by Smithfield Foods in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, that produced roughly 5% of US pork before it was shut down after more than 500 workers became infected.
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