In the United States, reports of COVID-19 spreading within the livestock-processing industry led to increased attention and updated safety guidance by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (22). See online for related content such as Commentaries. Each size category was sufficiently represented, with 349 small plants, 126 medium plants, and 225 large plants. According to the Drovers Cattle Network, there were 96.5 million head of cattle here as of mid-2013. We now present potential characteristics of livestock facilities that might contribute to these observed relationships with the COVID-19 case and death rate. Our analysis used a county-level dataset of COVID-19 cases and deaths from the New York Times, based on reports from state and local health agencies (71). Livestock, farm animals, with the exception of poultry. This attack followed a rash of alleged mutilations in the area and across the nearby border in Nebraska. We find that the presence of a slaughtering plant in a county is associated with four to six additional COVID-19 cases per thousand, or a 51 to 75% increase from the baseline rate. ↵††We present summary statistics by distance band in SI Appendix, Tables S16–S18. An analysis omitting counties more than 100 km from a county with a livestock plant showed a relationship with livestock facilities greater in magnitude than the base specification, indicating that our findings are robust to this risk and, perhaps, somewhat conservative (SI Appendix, Table S9). [9], Senator Floyd K. Haskell contacted the FBI asking for help in 1975 due to public concern regarding the issue. Over the decades, the livestock- and poultry-processing industry in the United States has consolidated its operations into fewer, larger plants, in which meat production per plant has increased threefold since 1976 (29, 30). By Diarmuid MacDonagh Public rights of way could be diverted due to spike in livestock related deaths Following a spike in livestock-related deaths, … A faster production line can result in both workers locating in greater proximity to one another and increased difficulty in maintaining personal protective equipment and thus could contribute to conditions that increase the likelihood of viral transmission. [11]:13 However, officers in charge were unable to determine responsibility or motive. The results are robust both nationally and when only considering variation within states after including state fixed effects. Plumbing a variety of historical data could offer important insights into trends in insect declines. Livestock facilities and county-level COVID-19 incidence. In addition, we find evidence that plant closures attenuated county-wide cases and that plants that received permission from the US Department of Agriculture to increase their production-line speeds saw more county-wide cases. ... Tri-State Livestock News. To this end, we employed county-level mobility data made available by Google for COVID-19 researchers. Snippy was Lady's sire and belonged to Nellie's husband, Berle Lewis. [26][36]:23 The operation came under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Of workers that were farmers, cattle caused 54 deaths and horses caused 27 deaths. The B.C. In the United States, it is a large industry, employing 500,000 people. Highways Act amendment could prevent livestock-related deaths By Becky Payne Agricultural reporter Following a spike in livestock-related deaths, rural groups have joined forces to … ↵*The CEOs of Wayne Farms and Tyson Foods—both granted waivers in April 2020—are, respectively, chairman of the National Chicken Council (the body that initially lobbied for the line speed waivers) and a public advocate for the poultry industry, buying full-page newspaper ads in April stating that the food supply chain was “broken.”. 0748: Sheep - This year 4. It was then expanded in September 2018 to allow all poultry plants the opportunity to apply for these waivers. Gray shaded bars reflect the estimated period when the effect of closing a plant would have been reflected in cases (1 to 3 wk after), given that incubation periods may last up to 14 d) (62). In 1975, the US Treasury Department assigned Donald Flickinger to investigate the existence of connections between cults and the mutilation of cattle. Competing interest statement: C.A.T., D.A., and editor Geoffrey M. Heal are affiliated with Columbia University. Among front-line meat-processing workers in the United States, 45% are categorized as low income, 80% are people of color, and 52% are immigrants, many of whom are undocumented and lack ready access to healthcare and other worker protections that could facilitate COVID-19 prevention and treatment (54⇓–56). Livestock deaths from mosquitoes aren't a new phenomenon. [38], During their investigations, the FBI and the ATF were unable to find appropriate evidence, including signs of consistency between mutilations, to substantiate that the animals had been the victims of any form of ritual sacrifice or organized mutilation effort. Many livestock plants were temporarily shut down to halt the spread of COVID-19. We further find the temporary closure of high-risk plants to be followed by lower rates of COVID-19 case growth. Data on manufacturing establishments come from the American Economic Survey (68). Moreover, studies have suggested that industrial climate control systems used to cool and ventilate meat processing facilities may further the spread of pathogenic bioaerosols, a proposed COVID-19 transmission route (46, 50⇓⇓–53). Ag News; Fresno County Declare Emergency for Heat-Related Livestock Deaths. Only — percent were younger than 25. A second approach used a binary measure for whether a county has one or more livestock plants and multiplied this coefficient by the county-level mean population and number of counties with livestock plants. These magnitudes can be visualized in Fig. Note that this only includes agricultural operations, and not livestock processing. 0752: Reptiles - This year E.g. On account of the time between death and necropsy, and a lack of background information on specific cattle, investigators have often found it impossible to determine if these variations are connected to the animals' deaths or not.[11]. More than a dozen have been killed over the past 20 years, but that's barely one per year. Several plants were forced to shut down until, among other factors, a federal executive order invoked the status of livestock processing as “critical infrastructure” for national security and mandated that these plants remain open (36, 37). On April 20, 1979, C Hibbs of the New Mexico State Veterinary diagnostics Laboratory spoke before a hearing chaired by Senator Harrison Schmitt. Rep., European Federation of Food Agriculture and Tourism Trade Unions, Brussels, Belgium, 2011), Resilience in a concentrated and consolidated food system, Meat shortages reopen costly path to smaller U.S. plants, Estimated daily US slaughter, capacity by plant (head per day), Nine meat plants in southern Brazil face COVID-19 outbreaks, Coronavirus spread accelerates again in Germany, An Australian meatworks is at the center of a virus outbreak, U.S. could be weeks from meat shortages with shutdowns spreading, Trump orders U.S. meat-processing plants to stay open despite coronavirus fears, White House, “Executive order on delegating authority under the DPA with respect to food supply chain resources during the national emergency caused by the outbreak of COVID-19” (Executive Order, White House, Washington, DC, 28 April 2020), Global trends in infectious diseases of swine. 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