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Supermarket giant Asda has confirmed the temporary closure of its meat processing factory in West Yorkshire, England, after more than 100 employees have believed to have tested positive for coronavirus (COVID-19.)
The outbreak at Kober Ltd, which is owned by Asda and provides the supermarket with bacon products, was announced by Health Secretary Matt Hancock during a daily news briefing.
‘Acted quickly’
According to Yorkshire Live, Kirkless Council said: “As soon as we became aware of this issue, we acted quickly to work with Public Health England as well as the business and their staff to limit any further potential spread.
“We are testing the whole workforce and tracing and contacting everyone who is a contact of a positive case.”
It has been reported that affected workers will be given paid time off, and the factory plans to re-open in the near future.
‘Virus hotspots’
Abattoirs in several countries, including the U.K., have become virus hotspots, with more than 650 workers at a German slaughterhouse testing positive for COVID-19 earlier this month.
The slaughterhouse is run by German meat giant Tönnies. A spokesperson for the company said it has worked ‘intensively’ to ‘keep the virus out of the company’.
Tönnies has speculated that many of its workers traveled home to Romania and Bulgaria for a recent long weekend, and brought the virus from there into Germany.
The spokesperson added: “We can only apologize.”
