Saitone, Tina, K. Aleks Schaefer and Daniel Scheitrum

from ARE Update Vol. 24, No. 5, May/Jun, 2021

View Article PDF: COVID-19 Morbidity and Mortality in U.S. Meatpacking Counties

Abstract

The meatpacking industry has been at the center of employee-related COVID infection concerns. However, there is limited information on the scope of the issue. We investigate the extent to which the presence of a large meatpacking (i.e., beef, pork, and broiler chicken) plant has affected county-level COVID-19 transmission dynamics. We find that meatpacking operations significantly increased transmission of COVID, resulting in 334,000 cases and 18,000 deaths from January through October 2020.

Keywords

Meat processing, beef, pork, broilers, economic impact, rural communities

Citation

Saitone, Tina, K. Aleks Schaefer and Daniel Scheitrum. 2021. "COVID-19 Morbidity and Mortality in U.S. Meatpacking Counties." ARE Update 24(5): 9-11. University of California Giannini Foundation of Agricultural Economics.
https://giannini.ucop.edu/filer/file/1624402747/20073/