Even though its management of the coronavirus crisis has been among the most successful in Europe, Germany has seen repeated outbreaks in slaughterhouses, whose employees are often migrants living in crowded company-provided accommodation. The hours are long, the labour is intensive and, for rank and file labourers, the pay is low.Now, in the Covid-19 crisis, workers have one more thing to worry about – around the world their factories have proved to be a hotbed of infection. Chancellor Angela Merkel had favoured maintaining lockdown discipline for longer, but eased restrictions following pressure from regional premiers. © 2020 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. Cedar Meats cluster: why abattoir workers are on the coronavirus frontline As the US deals with a Covid-19 catastrophe in its meatworks, the Melbourne factory points to … Covid-19 : 225 employés d’un abattoir belge placés en quarantaine 18 salariés de cet établissement situé à Staten (Flandre) ont été testés positifs au coronavirus. Cases in abattoirs in Germany Elsewhere, in Germany, 90 employees at an abattoir in Dissen, in the northwest have tested positive for Covid-19, according the local authorities on Monday. As By Friday the cluster of cases linked to Cedar Meats had grown to 71.One reason for the intensity of outbreaks at meat processing plants is the physical layout of the factories, says Prof Benjamin Cowie, an epidemiologist and infectious disease expert for the Doherty Institute.“The workers have to be in relatively close proximity, based on the way the actual workflow occurs, it means that physical distancing is quite challenging.”Matthew Journeaux, the secretary of the Queensland branch of the Australasian Meat Industry Employees Union says there are limits to the way work patterns in abattoirs can be altered.“Basically at the abattoir animals are put on a chain which moves along and everyone has a particular job to do along the way,” he says.“It’s not as simple as moving people apart … You have work stations and many of them have specific machinery installed there, up and down platforms and things like that.”Many of the stations are within a metre of each other.“There is very little automation in meat processing, each step is highly labour-intensive so this means you end up with a lot of people all in the same factory,” Journeaux says.Even if factories were to completely refurbish production lines, a proposition Journeaux calls “impractical”, this would mean reducing meat production by as much as half.“Conservatively Australia exports about 60% of the meat produced so we could still feed Australians … but the industry is reliant on those exports, it wouldn’t survive a cut like that.”Shifts at meatworks are long, meaning in busy periods workers may be standing within a metre of each other for 10 to 12 hours a day. Reporting by Edward Taylor; Editing by Christina FincherGeneral view of the main Toennies meat factory that had to be shut down because of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak among its employees, in Rheda-Wiedenbrueck, Germany June 20, 2020. But since the onset of Covid-19, several plants have attempted to block union officials to entering, he says.“They say it’s due to the Covid-19 outbreak and safety concerns. On Thursday, China banned meat imports from the plant. Everything they tell us to do, we don’t say no.”Journeaux says in Queensland the union has delegates who visit factories to ensure workers who speak English as a second language receive all relevant information. The risk is really substantially greater for every extra hour you’re spending in close proximity to someone,” he says.“Also many parts of a meatworks are kept at quite a cold temperature. Certainly, we know that the coronavirus that causes Covid-19, similar to many other respiratory viruses, is more stable in cold conditions, and that may have some role in increasing the potential for contamination or transmission.”The production lines also involve potentially dozens of workers touching the same object, but Cowie says not enough research has been done into how the virus survives on animal flesh to know if this is a significant risk factor.There are also cultural factors that may affect the vulnerability of meat workers.The most recent federal profile of the meat industry, from 2012, shows about 14% of meat boners and slicers and 11% of slaughter persons were born in non-English speaking countries. The outbreak may force the German state of North Rhine Westphalia to impose a broader lockdown. We believe that’s contrived and it’s not correct.”The union is considering taking the matter to the federal court.Many meat processing plants have put measures in place to reduce the chances of infection in areas that can be controlled.“We have been working closely with factories to make sure lunchtimes are staggered so there aren’t too many people in the lunchrooms,” Journeaux says.Guardian Australia understands Cedar Meats had instituted infection controls before their outbreak.Workers have said surfaces such as door handles were regularly disinfected, the boning room and slaughter floor workers were encouraged not to mix or eat lunch together, and the company hired a security guard to check temperatures and send home anyone who might be sick.Of the 4,900 meat workers infected with Covid-19 in the US (as of 8 May) at least 20 have died, and in many states But Australia’s diversified meatpacking industry means it may not see a similar level of infections, says Assoc Prof Junsong Bian from the business school at La Trobe University.“America has the big four meat processing firms that make up a huge percentage of the market share,” he says.These firms control more than 80% of all beef production.“In Australia, the top 20 firms occupy roughly half of the market share.”The size of the US companies allows for enormous factories with thousands of workers in the same building.“Labor costs in Australia are much higher, so it’s harder to hire so many workers on a large scale,” he says.The US president, Donald Trump, has invoked the Defense Production Act, In comparison, Cedar Meats began closing in the days after a widespread cluster was established.

2 Min Read. The localised lockdown is a setback for Germany’s reopening strategy. German coronavirus outbreak at abattoir infects more than 1,000. FRANKFURT (Reuters) - More than 1,000 employees at German meat processing firm Toennies have tested positive for coronavirus, prompting local health authorities to order all 6,500 employees and their families to go into quarantine. L'abattoir SVA Jean Rozé de Vitré (Ille-et-Vilaine) a lancé une nouvelle campagne de dépistage du Covid-19 au début du mois d'août. “As an entrepreneur I can only apologise. By Friday, that number had doubled to 803 and it climbed further to 1,029 by Saturday. 54 salariés d'un abattoir de Fleury-les-Aubrais (Loiret) ont contracté le coronavirus. Dans le Loiret, où le personnel d'un abattoir a été contaminé en masse, un plan d'urgence a été mis en place pour endiguer l'épidémie. Speaking at a press conference on Saturday, the meat company’s proprietor, Clemens Toennies, said the outbreak presented an “existential crisis” for his firm, which has suspended operations as authorities seek to control the outbreak.