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Tyson to temporarily close Iowa pork plant after outbreak

Posted at 12:46 PM, May 29, 2020
and last updated 2020-05-29 13:47:34-04

STORM LAKE, Iowa (AP) — Tyson Foods has announced it will temporarily close a northwestern Iowa pork plant a day after state health officials revealed that 555 of its more than 2,500 employees had tested positive for COVID-19.

The company made the announcement late Thursday in a news release that it would shutter its Storm Lake plant over the next two days and stay closed while undergoing a deep cleaning next week. Buena Vista County, where Storm Lake is located, had 701 positive cases as of Thursday, or 3,527 cases per 100,000 people — the largest concentration of cases in Iowa.

Meat processing plants across the country have been hit hard by the coronavirus outbreak, and Tyson has temporarily closed several plants in Iowa, Nebraska and other states.

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