May 15, 2020: COVID in the White House - Trouble in the Meat Packing Business

 

5/15/20: There’s no end in sight for the spread of the virus. Two individuals working in the White House have tested positive. At least one source told NBC that President Germaphobe was “lava level mad” on hearing the news, furious that staff weren’t doing a better job of protecting his narcissistic self. Now all White House employees are required to wear masks. Save for two: Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. 

Crappy pay and a chance for COVID, too.

Documents also show that 11 members of the U.S. Secret Service are currently infected, 23 have recovered, and 60 are in self-quarantine. 

And did we mention: the U.S. meat supply may be endangered? At the Tyson Foods plant in Waterloo, Iowa, 1,031 employees have fallen ill. The problem never stops there. One sick person in the White House could infect the president – which would be the ultimate irony. One infected Secret Service agent infects a second and a second infects a third. Each worker at Tyson goes home at the end of his or her shift. An infected worker passes the virus to a family member or two, or everyone in the house. A family member goes to the grocery and infects a checkout clerk. The checkout worker says, “Hi,” to the letter carrier, and infects her in turn. 

As of April 17 more than 900 U.S. Postal Service workers had tested positive and 30 had died.

 

In Iowa, where a Republican governor has been proclaiming success in defeating COVID-19, Tyson Foods admitted a “few” workers might be infected at yet another plant in Perry. Officials refused to release the numbers, until they had no choice. By then 730 employees had contracted the disease. 

Another 221 Tyson employees tested positive for the virus at a plant in Columbus Junction. 

It’s a new definition of “few.” 

It was discovered that 258 workers at a meatpacking facility owned by another company in Tama, Iowa were sick – and 131 at a wind turbine manufacturing plant in Newton. 

 

If you work for Tyson Foods, prayer would be wise. 

Meanwhile, Gov. Kim Reynolds had relaxed social distancing rules across the state, saying people could go back to church, starting this month. “Occupancy rates” for sanctuaries, however, would be 25% of normal. Many churches decided rightly that keeping one’s distance from others whose heads were bowed in prayer was still a solid health concept. Online services remained the rule. On a positive note, members of the First Assembly of God in Cedar Rapids did at least work together to donate 35,000 pounds of groceries to hard-hit Iowan families. 

Across the river, in Nebraska, another Tyson Foods meatpacking plant in Dakota County also had an explosion in infections, with at least 669 workers recovering or sick. Or in two cases: Dead. 

As reported by The New York Times: 

The Tyson plant in Dakota City [in Dakota County] has temporarily closed for deep cleaning. Now the workers wait, afraid to go back to work but fearful not to.

 

“They need money and they want to go back of course,” said Qudsia Hussein, whose husband is an imam helping counsel the families of workers who have been sickened or have died. With many businesses shuttered or suffering financially because of the pandemic, she said, “There’s no other place they can work.”

 

* 

IN OTHER NEWS, a speech from the Rose Garden, featuring Mr. Trump bragging about himself, was interrupted by the blaring of truck horns, which the president claimed was gorgeous music to his ears. 

“And you hear that outside, that beautiful sound – those are truckers that are with us all the way. They are protesting in favor of President Trump, as opposed to against,” he said. “There’s hundreds of trucks out there, and that’s the sign of love. Not the sign of your typical protest. So I want to thank our great truckers. They like me and I like them.” 

Later, he repeated the claim. “Those are friendly truckers,” he said. “They’re on our side. It’s almost a celebration, in a way.” 

Actually, the truckers have lined the streets near the White House since May 1, protesting against unfair freight rates, price-gouging by trucking industry brokers, safety regulations they don’t like, and the federal government’s lax attitude toward autonomous vehicles, which might threaten their jobs. 

So, we had two distinct possibilities. One: Trump was clueless again. Two: Trump was lying again.

 

BLOGGER’S NOTE: It is estimated that at least a third of the workers in America’s meatpacking plants are immigrants. That includes refugees from Ethiopia and Somalia, many of whom are Muslim. Believe it or not, MAGA folks, not all immigrants come here to kill you. Not even Muluka Beker, an Ethiopian woman who trims off the tails of up to 2,500 cattle per day. She has a knife. She knows how to use it. Rather than cut you up like sausage, she and thousands like her are helping prepare that sausage for your breakfast.