At least 59,000 meat workers caught COVID and 269 died, report says

At least 59,000 meatpacking workers became ill with COVID-19 and 269 workers died when the virus tore through the industry in 2020. Those numbers are about three times higher than previously thought, according to a new U.S. House report released Wednesday.

With workers standing shoulder-to-shoulder along production lines, the meatpacking industry was one of the early epicenters of the coronavirus pandemic. Companies could have done more to protect their workers, according to the U.S. House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, which used internal documents from five of the biggest meatpacking companies for its report.

The new estimate of infections in the industry is far higher than the 22,400 that the United Food and Commercial Workers Union has said were infected. And the true number of infections could be even higher because the company documents typically don't account for coronavirus cases confirmed by outside testing or self-reported by employees.