Smokedraw01 said:

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tysker said:

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Meat packing plants and nursing homes seem to the sources of many current clusters. Is there a connection? Not to bring up a political hot potato but both industries hire a fair amount immigrants, correct? And its not uncommon for these immigrants workers to live together in small and overfilled quarters. Again density and proximity being a problem.

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Many meatpacking plants hire many illegal immigrants, last I read and it's not uncommon for 10+ illegals to rent a single house or apartment. I wonder if that has much influence on the issue as well.

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A recent Freakonomics podcast discussed and noted something similar but from the perceptive of meat/food supply chain distribution and labor issues if borders get shut down.

When compared to this data:
https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/full/10.1377/hlthaff.2018.05514

Quote:

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Using nationally representative data, we found that in 2017 immigrants accounted for 18.2 percent of health care workers and 23.5 percent of formal and nonformal long-term care sector workers. More than one-quarter (27.5 percent) of direct care workers and 30.3 percent of nursing home housekeeping and maintenance workers were immigrants.

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Do immigrant healthcare workers have the same living practices? Likely not as extreme but maybe close enough to cause issues in terms of infection and transmission. Again I dont want to make it political but it seems like an interesting potential connection.

I wonder if living conditions of certain clusters are going to become a hot topic. It explains why places like NYC and NO and other urban centers are just more susceptible to hospitalization upon infection. And, yes, along with underlying health concerns)

I really don't know what PPE they wear

might be a totally different mechanism in that environment, but it does seem like super spread is occurring in enclosed environments where people are talking, laughing, crying, yelling very close to each other

These days, most of the employees in the meat packing plants are legal immigrants brought into the US through a connection with a charity, for example the Catholic Charities. A few months ago, the NYT had an article about this. The connection with the charities began when the feds started cracking down on the use of illegal immigrants. In the Texas panhandle, there is a lot of Burmese immigrants.

The immigrants are provided housing (lots of close quarters) and are bussed into the plants for work. This maybe a source of the spread because they live, transport, and work closely together.

re: meat packing plants having a lot of immigrant laborers who all live together --- if those are the key indicators for virus spread, then I would expect similar case data for other industries... for example in places like Ventura County and Oxnard CA where a lot of produce is grown and harvested. Mostly immigrant laborers in the agriculture industry there and they pack into small domiciles as renting property in California can be... burdensome.

Really struck a nerve, to come back unprompted a day after the fact

Keegan99 said:

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Moreso idle curiosity about those that are - or should be - terrified their work is about to become irrelevant or dismissed in the wake of this pandemic.

The "let's force Americans to live really close together and use mass transit" busybodies are screwed for the foreseeable future. And he's working really hard to delude himself that is not the case.


(I also like to see what people that make really, really dumb arguments think about other stuff. His argument against density as a factor was really, really dumb. And sure enough, he's got other dumb ideas, like tearing down freeways.)

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Tearing down freeways is a serious urban planning mechanism that's being adopted at a growing pace all over the world.

Either way, not the point, I also disagree with him about density, but there's plenty on topic to refute his density point without doing a old fashioned Politics board smear initiative.

Shumba said:

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I think the panhandle cases stem from meatpacking plants. I grew up in Amarillo, and still have a lot of friends up there. I asked my buddy (who is from Dumas) what was going on in Moore county and he reminded me of the meatpacking plant up there and said all the cases he knows of have come from there.

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Some People will still take a vacation , a beach house that is just your family is the best way to VaCay and still practice social distancing.

AnScAggie said:

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Pumpkinhead said:

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You could argue that Las Vegas would potentially be a notable issue as a 'super spreader' center. You'd possibly have a lot of people, touching things, handling chips, in close promity to each other...possibly infecting each other and then those folks would fly back to where ever they live.

Different sort of situation than NYC, but you'd have to think carefully about how to re-open Vegas.

That is of course, without taking into account that even if they did re-open Vegas, how much would the tourist traffic be down compared to pre-COVID. Obviously, they'd have significantly reduced visitors to Vegas, but how much reduced would be a question.

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I think Vegas, cruises, and Disney die a slow death or are drastically changed after this event is over.

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Let's hope you're right.

Joseydog said:

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These days, most of the employees in the meat packing plants are legal immigrants brought into the US through a connection with a charity, for example the Catholic Charities. A few months ago, the NYT had an article about this. The connection with the charities began when the feds started cracking down on the use of illegal immigrants. In the Texas panhandle, there is a lot of Burmese immigrants.

The immigrants are provided housing (lots of close quarters) and are bussed into the plants for work. This maybe a source of the spread because they live, transport, and work closely together.

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Joseydog nailed it. When I was up there 15 years or so ago, we knew a lot of refugees from the middle east that were brought to Amarillo and went to work at the meatpacking plant outside of town. They were religious refugees from Iran, but there were also a lot of refugees from northern Africa and Asia that worked there (Burma and Laos, if I remember correctly).

Those folks were living in smaller apartments around Amarillo and typically carpooled or bused to the plant (this was IBP back in the day, but I think it was bought out by Tyson). Typically, whole families would be living in two-bedroom apartments. The parents would work as many hours as they could get (60 to 70 hours a week was fairly typical), and the kids would fend for themselves, or stay with older relatives. The work was hard, and they always seemed exhausted. I'm sure they break rooms and lunch rooms at those facilities were pretty cramped as well. I could see how those conditions would lend themselves to a big outbreak.

I wonder if there are any TexAg readers that work in the Meat industry that can tell us what they think our supply will look like in the next month or two? I'm guessing it's gonna be harder to find beef, chicken, and pork. May be time to book a fishing trip and load up on striper from Texhoma!

If I am being advised to smoke several briskets and port butts over the next few days and stock my freezer, please say the word and I will inform the Mrs about my plans for the weekend.

cone said:

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it seems more and more they key to stopping spread is to simply keep our mouths shut around others

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This is the cure for many problems.

Keep your mouth shut and the keyboards off you might even say/type.

Keegan99 said:

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The Texas panhandle data is a bit meaningless. As are some of the other areas in the South. They suffer from a small denominator problem, where a few instances of intra-family spread can juice a number. Or one nursing home or similar facility.

The clear exception on the map is NOLA, which has a small area - the French Quarter - that is super dense on a nightly basis.

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Correct - half of Washington County is from a nursing home.