By Ray King
A recent statement by an executive for Tyson Foods predicted a food shortage as processing plants around the country close because of the COVID-19 virus was a topic of discussion Monday during Governor Asa Hutchinson’s daily update on the Corona virus pandemic.
Hutchinson said there are over 60 food processing plants in the state and to date, none of them have had to close.
‘’We haven’t had any processing plants go down but if we do, we can work with them to try to get them back open,” Hutchinson said.
State Health Director Dr. Nate Smith said if a cluster of cases is reported in a plant, there are already plans in place to deal with it, from cleaning to contact investigations to determine who the infected worker or workers might have exposed.
In his daily update, Hutchinson said an additional 76 cases of COVID-19 have been reported in the state, bringing the total to 3,017. Of those new cases, Smith said 60 were from communities and the additional 16 were from Cummins Prison where the are now 856 inmates who have tested positive. A total of 50 staff members at Cummins have also tested positive.
Smith said six inmates at Cummins have been hospitalized, four of them at UAMS and the other two at Jefferson Regional.
One additional death was reported in the past 2 hours, bringing the state’ total to 50, and there are 109 people hospitalized, two more than on Sunday.
The Governor and Smith also talked about the two-day testing surge that the governor announced last week and took place Saturday and Sunday. Hutchinson had set a goal of 1,500 people to be tested each day and said Monday the state exceeded the goal.
On Saturday, 1,598 tests were conducted with a 4.8 percent positivity rate and on Sunday, 1,506 tests were conducted with a 1.8 percent positivity rate.
