PIERRE, S.D. (KELO) — Enhanced testing of Smithfield processing plant employees in Sioux Falls is in response to a COVID-19 outbreak there, South Dakota Department of Health officials said in a news conference Thursday.
The DOH said Smithfield is a COVID-19 hot spot and is linked to at least 80 cases in Minnehaha County.
The county had 46 additional cases of Thursday. Dr. Josh Clayton of the DOH would not specify if those new cases were linked to Smithfield.
Clayton and Kim Malsam-Rysdon, the secretary of the DOH, said on average, a person with COVID-19 comes in close contact with 10 individuals. Close contact includes situations such as spending five minutes in someone’s house or riding in a car.
Individuals who have had such contact with a COVID-19 confirmed Smithfield case are being contacted, Clayton said.
The DOH is also helping to make sure other similar businesses know of Center for Disease Control (CDC) guidelines for essential workers and food processing plants would fit that essential category, Clayton said.
Listen to audio of the call courtesy of South Dakota Broadcasters Association.
Keep reading
Your Guide To
Coronavirus
KELOLAND News is covering the COVID-19 pandemic. This is your guide to everything you need to know to prepare. We also have the latest stories from across the globe feeding into this page.
LATEST STORIES
- Eye on KELOLAND: Opening a new chapter during a pandemicMany college students in KELOLAND have wrapped up an unusual semester.
- Slowly, surely, US houses of worship emerge from lockdownOn the same weekend that President Donald Trump declared houses of worship are essential, pastors and congregants from some of those churches are cautiously returning to their sanctuaries.
- Travel industry inching backThe sight is quite jarring: Four-hundred passenger planes that would normally be zipping through the skies are now parked in the California desert, row after row, with thousands more grounded elsewhere.
