The epidemic is deteriorating the ability to distribute food supplies. While we knew it in an abstract way, this is real:
One of the largest pork processing facilities in the US is closing until further notice
One of the country's largest pork processing facilities is closing until further notice as employees fall ill with Covid-19. The closure puts the country's meat supply at risk, said the CEO of Smithfield, which operates the plant.
www.cnn.com
"The closure of this facility, combined with a growing list of other protein plants that have shuttered across our industry, is pushing our country perilously close to the edge in terms of our meat supply," the meat processor's chief executive, Kenneth Sullivan, said in a statement Sunday.
No one would be wrong in pointing out the moral failings in our industrial pork production system. But still, we aren't ready for it to come to an abrupt end either. Smithfield simply HAD to close it's operation because coronavirus was becoming an epidemic in its workforce. The same issues will affect egg farms and longer term, farm field workers simply have no means of getting to and from work or working the field while maintaining social distancing guidelines.
We might miss the days when the produce section was full and TP was scarce. It's looking as if the longer term situation will be the opposite.