More than 600 infections in meat factory “We can apologize”is A Corona-the outbreak of the German battle grinding engine Tönnies is taking on ever greater proportions. All schools and daycare centers in the district of Gütersloh are closed. The company speculated on the cause.Christian Wernicke, Düsseldorf0 comment, according to the crisis staff experienced in the meat factory Tönnies already the second wave of Corona infections. Photo: dpa
After the outbreak of a coronavirus infection at least 657 employees of a meat factory in the East Westphalian Rheda-Wiede brück, the district of Gütersloh includes all schools and day care centers. It was “a good way to prevent the spread of the Virus,” said district administrator Sven-Georg Adenauer, from the CDU. A General Lockdown of the authorities and the shops was not planned, however, because the risk of let a clear limit.
The battle of operation of the company, Tönnies, is since Wednesday still. First results after a Test of 1050 employees, mostly from Eastern Europe, had revealed that about two-thirds had plugged in. On the previous day, the Robert Koch Institute in Germany as a whole had only counted 345 new infections.
7000 people affected
Since Wednesday, all of the infected workers as well as their women and children, as well as all other employees of the Tönnies-operation in the quarantine are now. District Adenauer estimated the total number to 7000 people. He called on them to leave for 14 days the house.
As the Main source of the infection Tönnies made the meat cutting in the large-scale operation. “We apologize,” said a company spokesman. The chief of the Tönnies-crisis unit Gereon Schulze Althoff suspected as a possible cause of the outbreak, that the Virus had been carried to the getaways of Eastern European factory workers in the operation. “Our operation is not built for a pandemic,” said Schulze Althoff, “to bring the risk to zero is very difficult.” District administrator, Adenauer suggested to close the operation for two weeks.
Fewerkschafter working conditions, to criticize for years
For Armin Meadow, the regional representative of the Gewerkschaft nahrung Genuss-Gaststätten (NGG), the discovery of the outbreak, of all things, to the dissection tables in the gross operating not surprisingly. “We have Long warned that the jobs are dangerous,” said Meadow. In the normal cast is there it is impossible to maintain the minimum distance of 1.5 meters. Tönnies undertake its workers to Wear full face masks on the head and neck: “But for the protection of the product against spit, the Virus passes through the pores,” says Wiese.
Tönnies-crisis Manager Schulze Althoff said at a press conference, the last of the employees would have to wear mouth protection. He acknowledged, however, that it could come in at low temperatures in the hall, increasingly, to the formation of aerosol, which facilitates Transmission of the Virus. Trade unionists, the effluvia of sweaty workers, a contagion problem in battle are to warn the world operated. Tönnies announced with better ventilation as well as artificial UV-light, the Corona of risk in the operation is reduced.
The operation in Rheda-Wiedenbrück, Germany, is designed on the slaughter of day 30’000 pigs. Pig farmers now fear that their animals do not sell.
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