Word spreads quickly in Salisbury — sometimes in English, other times in the Spanish or Creole of its immigrant communities. It’s how people learned about the young man who was hospitalized with COVID-19, or the father who developed an unrelenting fever and breathing difficulties and died.
The young man’s mother and the man who died were both chicken plant workers, a dominant employer in Salisbury, where Perdue Farms is headquartered, and throughout the Delmarva Peninsula.
“This is an intimate community,” said Amy Liebman, an occupational and environmental health specialist for a nonprofit. “We’re all connected here.”
The connective fiber has always threaded through the poultry industry, but perhaps no more clearly than now when its massive processing plants have emerged as hot spots of the global coronavirus pandemic.
State health officials say 362 poultry workers and family members have tested positive for the virus. Of those, 240 live in Salisbury or elsewhere in Wicomico County, although some may work at plants elsewhere in the three Delmarva states.
Those totals are the only figures the state has released. In response to repeated requests by The Baltimore Sun, the Hogan administration would not release specific numbers of cases for the two big plants on Maryland’s lower Eastern Shore — Perdue in Salisbury and Amick Farms in Hurlock in Dorchester County — saying it is still trying to test all workers on every shift and does not have complete data about the outbreak that has drawn national attention since April 23. That’s when The New York Times identified the Salisbury metro area as one of the country’s worst COVID-19 infection sites.
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DelMarVa's Premier Source for News, Opinion, Analysis, and Human Interest Contact Publisher Joe Albero at alberobutzo@wmconnect.com or 410-430-5349
And it's amazing that Jake Day actually had the balls to say most of the Wicomico cases are people working at DELAWARE chicken plants. Come on now, many of the people working at chicken plants don't drive. They walk or catch the company bus to the plant. Why would they go work in Milford, when they could work right at the Salisbury plant? Just seems like a deflection to protect his daddy!
ReplyDeleteNot to mention, how many of the cases are Wicomico Nursing Home and Anchorage?
There you have it folks!! The "REAL" person behind salisbury's progressive liberal bullshit RANDY DAY!! Jake Day doesn't have the mental capacity and maturity to put together some of the nonsense going on in Salisbury. Both of these idiots, Jake and his father push this liberal lunacy on salisbury's citizens begging for airtime on MSNBC. Daddy Day's daily business functions can't go on without the illegals or the Haitian immigrants in some cases employing the whole damn family. Then you can tie John Cannon into it providing housing for all of the poultry companies manual labor force.
ReplyDeleteAny place there is a greater number of folks working side by side risk for the spread of the Coronavirus....is enhanced! Poultry processing, nursing homes, product assembly lines and tight office spaces! You want to point a finger at an easy target so let’s jump on poultry plants....go back to work OR be safe and stay in your home!! You as individuals have to do what’s right for you and your family!!!
ReplyDeleteHow many are illegals? That would be interesting
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteSince the beginning almost all coronavirus cases at local hospitals have some connection with the chicken plants.
In mid April Allen Harim admitted that the coronavirus outbreak has hit its staffing levels so hard that it cannot keep up with production, slowing production by 50 percent.
Mountaire and Perdue have acknowledged cases in their plants but will not share the numbers of sick workers associated with their plants.
3:39 Just who do you think you are fooling? There are many assembly line jobs in this country where people were working side by side and no outbreaks have occurred. Only in the meat/poultry plants has this happened. The reason is because the meat industry has historically treated it's processing plant workers as disposable. They could have like responsible companies did slowed production early on. It was suggested somewhere to just do whole chickens which would have cut down on close contact but can't make money doing that so they didn't.
ReplyDelete“This is an intimate community,” said Amy Liebman, an occupational and environmental health specialist for a nonprofit. “We’re all connected here.”
ReplyDeleteLMFAO
This is the most gossipy small minded place I have ever lived. All connected? Only the population that has never ventured past the city limits. Ms Amy has sure learned the political lingo for racist poverty stricken small ghetto town.
6:54 You haven't lived many places then either that or you didn't get out much. I've lived all over the East Coast and in the most affluent zip codes in those states-Manhattan E 63 St Lennox Hills neighborhood, Northern VA, and FL I've live in Belgium, Monaco, and London. In London right near not only many embassies but right near Kensington Palace. It was during the time Princess Diana died and I could see the flower memorial through my windows. What I have found is all people are alike gossipy and small minded. What I have found out also is the more affluent and the more educated, the mind even gets smaller. It's just that you aren't in the inner circles of these people so you haven't any idea.
ReplyDeleteMaybe all of the imaginary 100,000 people who attended the folk festival all tested positive?
ReplyDeleteDon't worry the Poultry Association will put the right spin on it.
ReplyDeletePolitics will protect Perdue !!!
ReplyDelete