COVID-19 Outbreak At JBS Greeley Plant Is Over After 5 Months

There's some light at the end of the tunnel for JBS workers in Greeley.

The Greeley Tribune reported that as of Sunday (Sept. 27), the COVID-19 outbreak at the JBS meatpacking plant in Greeley that produced nearly 300 new cases and claimed the lives of 6 people is finally over.

An outbreak is considered over by the Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment when 28 days have passed without a single new case linked to a location or event.

Multiple meatpacking plants in Colorado faced COVD-19 outbreaks between late March and early June. The outbreak at JBS in Greeley - which began in April - was one of the largest in the state, according to the Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment. It is the last of the cluster of outbreaks to be declared over.

The news comes shortly after the Occupational Safety and Health Administration announced that they will be fining JBS $15,615 for failing to protect its Greeley workers from COVID-19. United Food & Commercial Workers - the union that represents JBS workers at the Greeley plant fired back, stating that the small fine “only incentivizes the company to continue endangering its employees”.

The Greeley Tribune also said that a seventh person who worked at JBS’s corporate offices in Greeley died from the coronavirus earlier this year.

In the early months of the pandemic, thousands of meat plant works fell ill with COVID-19 and nearly 100 people died.