Brown County sees cluster of COVID-19 cases

Brown County has seen a dramatic uptick in COVID-19 cases, with a cluster of cases centered around a meat packing facility in Green Bay.

The county has seen 292 confirmed cases, an increase of 119 since Friday, said Ted Shove, an environmental health manager for Brown County Health and Human Services Public Health Division and spokesman for the COVID-19 Brown County Area Command.

Shove told reporters that the cluster is focused around JBS Packerland, located on the city’s east side. Shove said they’re working on determining how many of the county’s cases are linked to the facility.

“We are currently working with JBS, and they are going to begin ramping up employee testing,” Shove said.

Other meat processing facilities in the county, like American Foods Group and Salm Partners, are testing employees, he said. JBS has the biggest cluster of cases, he added.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is helping Brown County with contact tracing and investigating the spread of the disease.

Shove said they’re ramping up messaging, including information in different languages on social distancing, cleaning, hand washing and staying at home for those who don’t speak English as their primary language.

Department of Health Services Secretary-designee Andrea Palm said they deployed around 2,200 tests through the state’s partnership with Exact Sciences to providers in the area.

That’s part of a “surge testing operation so that we could get a handle on positive cases, their contacts, and we could help get our arms around the outbreak that we’re seeing there,” she said.

A statement from Gov. Tony Evers said the outbreak has “significant risk potential to the community.”

“This is a good opportunity for us to really invest a lot of resources, a lot of intention to try and do this as well as we can to protect the community right now, but also to make sure that we understand how to use these resources in the best way for the coming months and year,” said Dr. Ryan Westergaard, chief medical officer of the DHS Bureau of Communicable Diseases.

JBS said in a statement that they are offering support to workers and their families who have tested positive. They’re not releasing further information.

They’ve implemented safety measures, including checking the temperature of employees before they enter a facility and sending sick team members home.

“We will endeavor to keep our facilities open, but we will not operate a facility if we do not believe it is safe or if absenteeism levels result in our inability to safely operate,” JBS said.

Shove said they’ve provided recommendations to the facility and are verifying whether they’re being implemented.

“If necessary, we will consider enforcement options,” he said. He said they’re concerned about employees working in close quarters and using cafeterias.

Christine Neumann-Ortiz, executive director of Voces de la Frontera, said they were contacted by employees with the virus at JBS and American Foods Group.

At a press conference, she said on April 13 they asked the companies for personal protective equipment for workers, testing for those exposed at work, paid sick days for those who are sick and have tested positive and other changes.

They’ve also filed complaints on behalf of workers of both companies with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

Neumann-Ortiz said that JBS and the United Food and Commercial Workers announced an agreement on Sunday for an “enhanced protection package” for about 1,000 workers.

“We applaud that progress by the UFCW and JBS Packerland, while at the same time emphasizing that the necessary current health protocols for physical distancing of six feet and other measures needed have to be implemented immediately,” she said. “We cannot wait for new materials that will separate workers on the line to arrive.”

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