• Live
    • Audio Only
  • google plus
  • facebook
  • twitter
News > U.S.

US: All Workers on a Tennessee Farm Are Positive for COVID-19

  • Henderson Farm in Evensville, Tennessee. May, 2020.

    Henderson Farm in Evensville, Tennessee. May, 2020. | Photo: Twitter/@realKaryotic

Published 29 May 2020
Opinion

Employers did not cease harvest activities despite workers' sanitary situation.

U.S. Southern Valley Executive Officer John Schwalls Thursday informed all workers in a Tennessee farm tested positive to COVID.

RELATED: 

Trump to Send National Guard to Minneapolis If Riots Continues

"After a worker tested positive for COVID-19... we requested that the Rhea County Health Department test all employees at Henderson Farms in Evensville, TN. When the results came back, we learned our workers tested positive for COVID-19,” Henderson Farm representatives stated.

The farm's administration reported a first COVID-19 case in early May. After wider testing, Henderson Farm registered 13 more cases. Thus far, 200  workers tested positive, three of them are asymptomatic.

Farmworkers sleep in narrow spaces in bunk beds. Alongside inadequate livelihood, workers cannot cease cropping due to production peak time. Farm holders did not discontinue harvest activities despite workers' sanitary situation, fearing fruit rotting.

 
The Henderson Farm alleged workers remain in isolation as a precautionary measure to restrain the virus’ spreading.

“This isn’t a concentration camp, people can come and go,” Schwalls declared.

Northwest Workers’ Justice Project Executive Director Michael Dale fears contagion clusters’ proliferation during the crop season.

“We’re watching very, very nervously. The agricultural harvest season is only starting now. I do not think we are ready. I don’t think we’re prepared,” Dale said.

According to local news media, over 50 farmworkers contracted the virus in a Gloucester County facility and another 60 in Salem County. About 170 field workers were also COVID-19 positive in a tomato and strawberry in Oneida, New York. 

Thus far, the U.S. registers 1,768,868 COVID positive cases, 103,345 deaths, and 498,762 recoveries from the virus. 

Comment
0
Comments
Post with no comments.