Louisa County sees 86 positives from Tyson Plant

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BY CHUCK VANDENBERG
PCC EDITOR

JOHNSTON - State officials released the highest number of positive coronavirus cases since daily updates began in March, due to an outbreak of positive tests out of the Tyson Foods plant in Columbus Junction.

At Tuesday's' daily press conference on the COVID-19 outbreak, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds said testing of plant employees Sunday revealed 86 new positives out of 189 positives across the state. The press conference was delayed about 40 minutes due to a website overload.

"As you're aware the Tyson Plant has experienced an outbreak among its employees. Public health is working closely with management to test staff there," Reynolds said.

She said state health officials have also confirmed three additional outbreaks in long-term care centers, two in Polk County, and one in Bremmer County.

"Local public health officials are working with the management and staff to ensure all steps are being taken to isolate sick residents, assign dedicated staff, and monitor all other residents," she said.

As a whole for the state, 189 positive tests were confirmed with 481 negative tests for a total of 670 tests conducted. The state lab has 3,415 tests available.

When pressed by pool reporters, Reynolds deferred the low number of tests to Iowa Department of Public Health Deputy Director Sarah Reisetter who said due to the Easter Sunday holiday, test numbers were down and that's a pattern the IDPH has seen on weekends, specifically Sundays.

The state has now had 1,899 positive tests confirmed by the State Hygienic Lab and has had 17,467 negative tests for a total of 19,366 tests. Ten percent of those tested have been confirmed positive. The state has also had 49 deaths reported with the peak of the outbreak now pushed back to the end of the month.

Reynolds said the meat packing plants across the state and in neighboring states are being very proactive. The Tyson plant employs about 1,400 people in Columbus Junction, a town of about 2,000.

Reynolds said the state was looking into the contact tracing of the positives to see how many other counties in the region could be impacted by the positive tests.

But she said the decision about when to open some of the facilities back up is being left to company ownership. She said Tyson officials wanted to "stand the facility back up" this week, but have pushed that back to Monday. The plant closed on April 6 when 12 positives were confirmed.

On Monday, National Beef announced it was closing its Tama facility until April 20, following numerous positive tests on employees at that facility.

"When I reached out to the CEOs at both plants they had already taken the steps needed. They are being very proactive. I called to see if there was anything else we could do." Reynolds said.

She said local public health agencies were already doing contact tracing at both sites.

Reynolds said the outbreaks at the production facilities in Iowa and neighboring states could have a huge impact on Iowa's economy and said it's important that the states move responsibly, but quickly, to get the facilities back open.

When pressed on whether she will extend the current emergency declaration into May, Reynolds said she wasn't ready to make any projections, citing again, that state officials were looking at metrics not only to extend the order, but also metrics to look at beginning to open the state back up.

"I'm not going to make any projections now. We're hoping we can start that process in May, but I'll have to see where we at at the end of the month. We'll keep you apprised of that as we move through the next several weeks," Reynolds said.

The state also released a new website at https://coronavirus.iowa.gov with an updated format with additional resources for the general public on state data.

Coronavirus, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, National Beef, Pen City Current, positive tests, record, Tyson Foods

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