The BBC reports on the “untold story of America’s biggest outbreak”, at The Smithfield Foods pork-processing plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
The BBC spoke to half a dozen current and former Smithfield employees who say that while they were afraid to continue going to work, deciding between employment and their health has been an impossible choice.
The closure of a large meat processing facility like the one in Sioux Falls causes upstream disruption, stranding farmers without a place to sell their livestock. About 550 independent farms send their pigs to the Sioux Falls plant.
With 3,700 workers, it is also the fourth-largest employer in the city.
![“In the fields and in many food processing plants, labourers toil in close proximity, with no protective equipment,” a joint statement signed by 30 organisations said [SHUTTERSTOCK]](https://quota.media/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Screenshot-2020-04-29-at-11.51.07-75x75.png)
