I thought abbatoirs weren’t full of people packed together, I thought modern ones have relatively low staff counts? Of course abbatoirs will be a hotbed of all sorts of pathogens if not properly managed.
MedEwok wrote:
The meat industry in particular seems to be vulnerable, with several hundred infected in a single factory
The UK now has 3 of these meat packing places shut. What is the mechanism? I know a lot of disgusting stuff goes on especially with factory chickens, but that doesn’t give an obvious clue as to how it spreads from one worker to another. Do they all touch the same bit of meat, in between picking their noses?
Wherever there are many poor/poorly educated people packed closely together, as is the case in an abattoir as well as in (social) housing blocks, infections spread easier. This has been true for almost all infectious diseases since time immemorial.
Sure, but this is the case all over the place (and creates a great political lever, as we see right now) but always has been thus, and meat processing is a tiny % of the workforce.
No mention of what is done with others on aircraft when positive tests occur.
They probably pop them into some local volcano. The virus dies in seconds at +80C or whatever.
Peter wrote:
know a lot of disgusting stuff goes on especially with factory chickens, but that doesn’t give an obvious clue as to how it spreads from one worker to another. Do they all touch the same bit of meat, in between picking their noses?
Might not be the workplace that matters but the accommodation of the workers: In the German case these are mostly East European migrant workers who are housed in dilapidated barracks, sometimes 10 per room, with substandard sanitation.
Similar cases happened in e.g. Singapore, were mass outbreaks of COVID appeared in migrant worker barracks.
alioth wrote:
I thought abbatoirs weren’t full of people packed together, I thought modern ones have relatively low staff counts? Of course abbatoirs will be a hotbed of all sorts of pathogens if not properly managed.
It’s still a labour intensive industry and in order to produce the cheapest meat in a high labour cost country like Germany while still being able to compete on the international market they more or less employ slaves. These are almost exclusively people from eastern Europe and the companies (sub contractors actually) also provide housing for their workers. Image 12 people each from a different family cramped into a moldy three room apartment and it’s no surprise that this virus spreads like hell in these communities.
We had same issue here with meat plants (where the meat is cut up rather than where the animal is killed).
The issue seemed to be people working shoulder to shoulder for long periods and crowded living accommodation.
Interesting that this particular industry seems to have the same issues in multiple countries.
It’s starting to look like if certain things were taken care of in the beginning, then this could have all be seen stopped much sooner.
Stop international travel for at least a short period to stop the spread initially
PPE for health care works and also a lot of those seemed to have spread it in their home settings (particularly poorly paid staff in shared accommodation).
Protections in the old folks homes
Protections in the meat factories.
Here approx 50% of deaths has been in old folks homes.
25% of infections have been with healthcare workers.
There have been significant clusters in meat factories.
dublinpilot wrote:
Here approx 50% of deaths has been in old folks homes.
25% of infections have been with healthcare workers.
There have been significant clusters in meat factories.
That’s an amazingly large proportion of the total. I have yet to meet anybody who has met anybody who has had Corona Virus, also a bit amazing to me. The exception would be our neighbor the nurse, who works in a large hospital.
MedEwok wrote:
The meat industry in particular seems to be vulnerable, with several hundred infected in a single factory
Similar outbreaks happened in the US earlier.
And in The Netherlands
dublinpilot wrote:
Stop international travel
“Raising the drawbridge” and stopping travel early on here in the Isle of Man is probably why the last COVID restrictions are now gone here (apart from the keeping of the drawbridge raised).
I read that 40% of the virus deaths in the US are in care homes. I think a lot of must have come from Cuomo sending people still infected back into the care homes in New York.
