The meat industry has always sought to distort and sugarcoat reality, hiding from consumers what truly happens on intensive farms and the environmental and social impact of a system that has, scientifically, managed to reduce production costs ever further, with no regard for the consequences. In much the same way, many slaughterhouses, according to workers' accounts, initially sought to conceal or downplay the impact of Covid-19 on their employees in order to avoid closure — but without success. Around the world, numerous facilities involved in the slaughter of animals and the processing of meat have indeed been forced to shut down owing to the growing number of employees who have tested positive for coronavirus.

The vulnerability of slaughterhouses

The worst-affected country is the United States, where outbreaks of Covid-19 have been recorded at more than 180 facilities, but similar problems are unfolding in many other countries, including Ireland, Spain, Australia, Germany, Brazil, Canada and the United Kingdom. Slaughterhouses are said to be particularly vulnerable for several reasons: first and foremost because they employ thousands of people, who are therefore forced to work in close proximity to one another, in an assembly-line fashion, with no possibility of maintaining physical distancing and in inadequate sanitary conditions. These facilities have also remained open throughout the crisis, and lastly, they rely predominantly on workers from the poorest sections of the population, such as migrants, who are often forced to live in shared accommodation.

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Meat production is at risk

Experts believe this situation could have long-term implications for meat production and risks undermining the stability of this unsustainable and inhumane industry. In the United States the first consequences are already becoming apparent: meat is beginning to run short, and in many cases large retailers have imposed a maximum purchase limit per customer.

A modern form of slavery

In the United States alone, according to a report by the Midwest center for investigative reporting, 10,000 cases of workers who have contracted the virus have so far been recorded across 29 states, along with at least 45 deaths. The first victim, according to the Guardian, is said to have been Elose Willis, 56, who had spent 35 years working at the Tyson foods poultry plant in Camilla, south-west Georgia, slaughtering 100,000 chickens per shift.

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In Germany there were more than 300 confirmed cases at the Müller Fleisch plant in Birkenfeld. In Canada, 949 workers fell ill at a meat-packing centre owned by Cargill in Alberta. In Australia, after 70 cases were confirmed, Cedar Meats in Melbourne was forced to close temporarily. Similar measures could be adopted in Brazil, where prosecutors are currently seeking to shut down facilities in which cases have been detected. In Ireland too, hundreds of workers — more than 560 — have contracted the virus, and Dawn Meats has closed its plant in Westmeath.

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In a number of cases it is suspected that workers may have continued working while ill due to financial insecurity. Some companies are also said to have offered them financial incentives to keep working. In slaughterhouses, the victims are therefore not only the animals, which live out short, degrading and brutal existences, but also the workers, forced into alienating, dangerous and poorly paid work simply in order to survive.

The link between slaughterhouses and epidemics

While the new coronavirus is threatening the lives of people who work in slaughterhouses and is hampering meat production, it is important to remember that livestock farming is itself responsible for many of the new infectious diseases that affect humans, and could give rise to new pandemics. Livestock represent a potentially serious public health threat, as the swine and avian influenza viruses have already demonstrated.

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The living conditions of animals on intensive farms, crowded together in unhygienic conditions, create the ideal environment for the proliferation and mutation of viruses and bacteria. If the current model of meat production — which, after all, does nothing more than satisfy our ever-growing demand for meat at absurdly low prices — does not undergo radical reform, the next pandemic will in all likelihood originate on our plate.