You know who owns that packing plant? A Chinese firm.
However, even WITH the problems at that plant, SD is third from the bottom in deaths from COVID19, at 7, or 7.9 per million people. Which is literally a hundred times better than NY.
It’s clear that many business have vulnerabilities that were heretofore under-appreciated, but the packing plants worry me. I’ve always thought. we won’t have food production problems in the US, and I don’t think we will, but I’m less sure than before and very worried about the rest of the world.
The closed factories around here do have most of their - trained and experienced - work force ready, willing to go back to work.
A possible major difference between 1918 and 2020 is that in this area 50 years ago we had at least 8 small factories. In recent years that number has dwindled to 3. Economically we weren’t doing so great BC-19. Before Covid-19.
I have to wonder if the Chinese owners are directly responsible for the lack of distancing and protective equipment.
Missouri also has one of their factories. Also closed.
Another MO factory is still working, employees are distanced and have been issued protective equipment. I just can’t recall who they are or what they make.
I think your assessment is probably accurate, but in their defense, I do think the Chinese are desperate. Before coronavirus, they were hit with another go-round of swine flu and I think some type of avian flu that has decimated their livestock. China is always on the border in terms of access to protein for their people.
This is just one of the many, many dominos that are yet to fall before this is over.
it’s has nothing to do with the actual legalization. There are apocryphal stories about how 4/20 became a thing. But it’s a big pot celebration day, and has been for a long time. In Denver, a ton of people crowd Civic Center Park and smoke. This has been gong on since before legalization.
It happens all over, but Colorado gets the attention b/c it was on the forefront of legalization and people just want to come here anyway.
I am all for legalization. I am NOT for idiots smoking in public. And people seem to think that legal means using anywhere. I don’t want your regular secondhand smoke, I most definitely don’t want that secondhand smoke, ESPECIALLY for my kid. And I’m sick of the vapers (regular and otherwise) who think they can do that everywhere also.
Is everyone off my lawn now?
I don’t even understand why people still want to smoke it, when there are soooooo many ways to imbibe that won’t destroy your lungs. But then I’ve never been a smoker, other than the odd clove cigarette in my younger days.
Word! I have a favorite park for walking (well, other than Disney!) near my home. It’s a lovely little loop around a picturesque lake. Lovely until you walk by someone and get a lung full of marijuana odor! I hate that smell! I think the heavy pot users don’t realize how stinky they are and that the odor follows them around. My daughter’s college dorm had flyers up saying something to the effect of “If you smoke weed, we can smell it and it will get us all in trouble!”
In social distancing news, I am amazed at the folks on my walk through the park who don’t move over. They will walk right down the middle of the path toward another person and will not move to the side. If we both move over we are at least six feet apart. But they won’t move! I don’t understand it.
Yeah I wasn’t able to draw a lot of conclusions from that paper, but I’m not an epidemiologist, so I doubt I’m the intended audience. It was definitely interesting though in light of the current situation.
I feel like the media/government/etc are framing this as the economy vs lives. This paper is basically arguing that to save lives is to save the economy. Eradication is not possible. Full-steam ahead economy is not possible. The places that saved the most lives also had the best economic outcomes. They struck the right balance for their local situation. Let’s hope we can do the same.
Also Los Angeles much more spread out. NYC issues are not surprising at all, given how many people are on top of each other.
And as someone who was sick probably 80% less after I quit riding the Metro, there is A LOT to be said about being in your own individual tin can on the road.
The SKorea method is only going to go so far here. They have 51m to our 350m, and a much smaller geographic area to cover. But perhaps more importantly, they are able to use surveillance methods that would never fly here.
ETA: Not to mention SK making information public about who has tested positive and where they live. Definitely not happening here.
Eh. Here the big packing plant (JBS) having big issues is owned by Brazilian billionaires. They made some motions toward protection (you keep seeing pictures of the ridiculous things they did to the lunchroom); but to call those measures de minimus would be very generous. On the lines, people are still on top of each other.
Not to mention these places are often staffed illegally, so they do what they want to the employees. The meat packing plants are modern day robber baron workplaces; only the robber barons are no longer Americans.
Yes!!! we quit the trail paths for this reason. And if I encounter one more moron pushing a stroller or walking dogs while their face is buried i their phone (instead of where they are walking), I might have a Falling Down or at least Network style moment.
Interesting. One of our state’s JBS plants is currently home to the area’s biggest outbreak and is causing their numbers to increase dramatically. I wonder what it is about meat packing plants in particular that make infections so bad?
I haven’t heard anything like this at other types of factories- though I guess a lot of other types are shut down with the shelter orders in place.
I think in a lot of ways, they are modern day sweatshops. Maybe not all, but it seems to me the JBS ones are. Again and again I hear the term “working elbow to elbow” in reference to JBS. Add to that most people working there are vulnerable populations of some sort and who are going to go to work no matter what.
There are definitely more challenges here in the US in terms of SK’s method. Only time will tell if we can make it work. We have advantages too though. Less reliance on public transportation overall, less population density.
I expect CO brewing industry to get wacked badly. It will not be helped that the GABF will almost certainly not happen this year. But this one make me so sad. A brewery that has been operating since the 17th century is closing.
Even though I knew in my heart that Massachusetts would not open schools this school year, but for some reason this is still devastating to me. Having my own little meltdown party now. I suck as a teacher, I don’t remember 5th grade math, I’m struggling to complete my own work and teach DS and now I know there are two more months of this misery. It’s just overwhelming. I will have my little pity party, remember that there are poor doctors and nurses who have it so much worse and continue on.
I’m in DFW and our superintendent shared that they are currently working on numerous plans based on a variety of scenarios for next school year. They are anticipating a normal start, delayed start, starting and then stopping due to a spike, etc. He said there is a committee made of individuals from across the region that are pulling resources to come up with a workable plan based upon where we are come the fall.
Many local school districts are offering daycare for essential workers. I believe in a case such as this, many more school districts will devise a similar plan.
