Nov. 9 (UPI) — A New Mexico meat manufacturing plant is suing the state after being asked to close its doors for two weeks following six positive COVID-19 tests among its employees within four days.
Illinois-based Stampede Meat, which runs a 550-employee processing plant in Sunland, N.M., near El Paso, pushed back against new state health department rules mandating that any business with four rapid-testing positive results within two weeks would need to temporarily close.
The company provides millions of pounds of meat products for stores such as Costco and Walmart.
In a case, filed Monday in New Mexico District Court, Stampede says closing would mean the company will have to destroy millions of pounds of meat, which could contribute to a national meat shortage. The company said they should be allowed to stay open because of President Donald Trump‘s executive order invoking the Defense Production Act allowing meat factories to remain open to prevent food shortages during the pandemic.
The state health department reported an outbreak of six positive rapid-response COVID-19 tests within four days among employees of Stampede Meat’s Sunland plant. Within two weeks, the state’s watchlist showed that Stampede had 11 positive tests.
New rules say businesses with outbreaks must temporarily close and follow deep-cleaning and workplace protocols. Failure to comply may result in criminal prosecution and/or fines, the state said.
The company said the number of employees infected was a small percentage of the overall workforce and that any employee who has tested positive has stayed home in quarantine.
The number of positive cases in New Mexico has been rising rapidly, prompting New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham to issue new, more restrictive public health orders in October that expire Nov. 13.
As of Nov. 6, the New Mexico Department of Public Health reported 56,289 cases of COVID-19, with 1,130 total deaths. As of Monday, 82 percent of general beds at New Mexico hospitals are occupied, and 66 percent of ICU beds are full, the public health department said.
Stampede has had 100 cases among employees since the pandemic began, the state’s environmental department spokeswoman, Maddy Hayden, told NBC.
Last spring, as the virus spread, Stampede employees complained at least three times to New Mexico’s state bureau of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration that they were unable to socially distance and felt unsafe at work.
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s office told KRQU that the state was confident that courts would uphold a state health order, adding that Stampede Meat’s 11 rapid responses is “so far beyond the four case threshold that it is alarming.”
