By Rod Nickel
WINNIPEG, Manitoba (Reuters) – Cargill Inc will close part of its Guelph, Ontario beef processing plant on Thursday because of an outbreak of COVID-19 infections among workers, a public health organization said.
Cargill voluntarily agreed to the closure as 82 workers tested positive for the virus, the Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health agency said. As a precaution 129 other people were self-isolating.
“When we see an outbreak of this size, we must use all of the tools available to us to contain the outbreak and ensure the community at large is protected,” said Dr. Matthew Tenenbaum, Associate Medical Officer of Health for Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health.
A Cargill spokeswoman could not be immediately reached.
The Guelph plant is the latest in a string of North American meat plants to suspend or reduce production during the pandemic, although the biggest closures occurred in spring, including at Cargill’s High River, Alberta plant.
Since then, packers have implemented new protective measures for workers, such as greater physical separation in plants that often involve elbow-to-elbow working conditions.
The spring meat plant closures in Canada and the United States left farmers at the time with few options to slaughter market-ready cattle and pigs, causing a glut of livestock.
(Reporting by Rod Nickel in Winnipeg; Editing by Chris Reese and Grant McCool)
