Big Ten football, nursing homes and the Omaha Public Schools are turning to rapid or regular testing to identify people who have the coronavirus before it spreads further.
But what about meatpacking plants?
The virus raced through those workplaces earlier this year, sickening thousands of Nebraskans who typically work side by side to send cuts of beef, pork and poultry to restaurants and grocery stores.
In the wake of those outbreaks, groups advocating for workers pressed for more widespread testing, among other safety measures.
“Where are our priorities?” said Gladys Godinez, a community organizer for the Center for Rural Affairs and a member of the group Solidarity with Packing Plant Workers. “We tout that we’re ‘The Beef State.’ We talk about pride and how much we love our essential workers, but yet we’re not protecting them to the capacity we can with the technology we have.”
Some companies chose to mass-test the workforce of entire plants after dozens or even hundreds of positive cases emerged. But testing every worker once only tells you one thing: whether someone has the coronavirus on that particular day.
To try to get ahead of potential outbreaks, plant operators like Tyson Foods and JBS USA say they are rolling out surveillance testing programs that test a portion of plant workers on a weekly or biweekly basis.
Tyson’s three-pronged strategy tests not only workers with symptoms and their close contacts, but also a random sampling of other staff to see if there are any hidden or asymptomatic infections in the plant, officials said. When Tyson mass-tested all 1,400 workers at its Madison, Nebraska, plant this spring, 212 workers tested positive, and 35% of those had no symptoms.
An algorithm determines who’s tested and how often. A larger sample size may be chosen if coronavirus cases are rising in the surrounding community. Occupational health nurses who have more direct contact with sick employees may be tested more frequently than office workers, for example, but if few nurses test positive over a period of time, the algorithm might recalibrate and select more workers in another department.
“This is about getting in front of potential outbreaks,” said Dr. Daniel Castillo, the chief medical officer of Matrix Medical Network, the third-party health care company contracted by Tyson. “If we are continuously pulsing communities and then taking note of epidemiological data, local data around rising cases or falling cases, percent positivity of tests performed, both in the community as well as those in the facility itself, we then adapt the testing protocol so that we understand the risk earlier, before an outbreak.”
In Nebraska and western Iowa, expanded testing is happening at Tyson plants in Council Bluffs and Madison and at JBS plants in Omaha and Council Bluffs, according to company representatives. Surveillance testing will be launched soon at Tyson plants in Lexington and Dakota City and the JBS plant in Grand Island, the site of one of the earliest meatpacking plant outbreaks in Nebraska.
“We are currently conducting surveillance testing in more than half of our U.S. facilities, prioritized based on community prevalence of COVID,” said JBS spokeswoman Nikki Richardson. “All U.S. locations will have surveillance testing by mid-October. We test a representative sample of the population, determined in partnership with medical experts, at each participating plant every other week. All … test results are provided within 48 hours and frequently within 24 hours.”
Eric Reeder, president of United Food & Commercial Workers Local 293, which represents food workers in Nebraska, said he’s heard that expanded testing is also occurring at Smithfield Foods and Omaha Steaks facilities.
“Most all the plants are doing mandatory testing in some form, either random or going through the whole plant,” he said. “The bigger plants do random testing; the smaller plants might test everyone.”
Some workers have grumbled about being forced to be tested regularly, and Reeder said the union and plant managers are still hashing out what to do if someone refuses a test.
The World-Herald asked several other meat or food companies to provide more details on their testing policies and protocols. Cargill; Omaha Steaks, which runs a distribution center in Sarpy County; Greater Omaha Packing Co.; and Quality Pork International, Inc. either did not respond or did not provide in-depth information about their testing programs.
“We are committed to working closely with local health authorities and third-party medical providers to identify the best safety and testing protocols for the Cargill employees and the community,” Cargill spokesman Daniel Sullivan said.
Cargill operates plants in Nebraska City and Schuyler. “We have run several sitewide testing programs in partnership with local health departments and continue to explore all options available to us. We also continue to waive all COVID-19 testing copays for employees,” Cargill said.
A Smithfield spokeswoman said the company provides free, on-demand and on-site COVID-19 testing to workers at its 40-plus facilities. Workers can be tested as often as they want, even if they don’t have symptoms, she said, or Smithfield will cover the cost if they want to be tested by their own health care provider.
Testing is mandatory for certain employee groups, including all new hires, those showing symptoms, workers who have been in close contact with a co-worker who tested positive and employees at a closed facility when it reopens.
Plant operators, health officials and workers’ advocates agreed that coronavirus cases in Nebraska meatpacking plants have dropped significantly, though they have not disappeared.
That’s likely due to a number of factors, including enhanced safety measures, more widespread use of masks and the fact that a number of workers in many plants have already contracted the virus and have some form of immunity. There is still concern about the possibility of increased cases during the fall and winter, and some rural areas where meatpacking plants are located are already seeing cases spike.
“We’re going to run into flu season, so how do you weed out the people that have flu versus COVID?” Reeder said.
A Tyson spokesman said less than 0.5% of the company’s 120,000 U.S. workers have active cases of the coronavirus — which works out to less than 600 cases — but did not provide specific numbers.
The Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services said that by mid-September, 5,267 of the state’s meatpacking workers had tested positive for the virus since the start of the pandemic, and 22 had died. Weekly cases among meatpackers peaked at 1,335 during the last week of April, then dropped to 13 cases per week in mid-July before creeping back up to 54 cases in one week in late August.
Asked about rapid testing, JBS and Tyson officials said that for now, they are sticking with the gold-standard test — PCR, or polymerase chain reaction. The PCR test takes more time and laboratory equipment to process but is considered the most reliable and sensitive way to detect the coronavirus.
Antigen tests, commonly used in doctor’s offices for influenza, detect proteins known as antigens that have been collected on nasal swabs or in saliva. The tests are cheaper, and results are faster.
The University of Nebraska plans to conduct rapid-response, point-of-care antigen testing, such as what is used in professional sports, on Husker athletes. More than 100 players, staff and coaches will be tested on a near-daily basis.
The federal government has sent antigen testing machines to nursing homes so they can quickly test staff and residents. OPS is partnering with the University of Nebraska Medical Center and the state’s TestNebraska system to regularly test teachers, bus drivers and other staff using what will likely be a combination of PCR and rapid antigen tests.
Rapid tests, which can supply results in minutes or hours, are an alluring prospect, said Castillo and Scott Brooks, a senior vice president at Tyson who has led the company’s coronavirus response. Most Tyson workers receive their PCR test results in 2 to 3 days, though sometimes it takes longer.
Some scientists have called for rapid, more frequent testing to screen workers, students and others. The aim, they say, is to catch people who are contagious, including some who haven’t yet developed symptoms or never will have them. Some have even promoted tests, which aren’t yet available, that would be cheap and simple enough to use at home.
But there are still questions about how reliable rapid tests are, Brooks and Castillo said.
“We’re open to using antigen testing,” Castillo said. “We want to make sure they’re approved by the FDA (the Food and Drug Administration). We do want to understand the behavioral impacts … of a less-accurate test — we want to understand questions for deploying it broadly, what’s the right frequency of testing given the potential false negatives and maybe potential false positives that come into play.”
“We want to make sure when we’re putting a program in place that we can stand behind it on an accuracy standpoint because we know the results do impact people’s lives,” Castillo continued. “We’re going to be thoughtful about it and let the science really guide us.”
Cost and availability is a factor, too.
At times, throughout Nebraska and the rest of the country, lab capacity has been strained, and testing supplies like swabs or processing plates have been scarce.
Expanded testing is a “significant expense” for Tyson, Brooks said, pointing to the company’s third-quarter earnings report, where it reported spending $340 million on coronavirus-related expenses, including testing, personal protective equipment, worker bonuses and hiring more medical staff.
Meatpacking plants often employ hundreds, even thousands of workers, said Dr. James Lawler, a director of the Global Center for Health Security at UNMC. Some nursing homes with smaller numbers of staff and residents are running into problems procuring the cartridges needed to run those tests.
Antigen tests seem to work best with frequent testing, perhaps multiple times a week, Lawler said, to make sure the less-sensitive tests aren’t missing positive cases during the early days of an infection. PCR tests are often used to confirm a positive antigen test result. That could translate to thousands of tests per week for a facility like Tyson’s Dakota City beef plant, which employs more than 4,000 people.
That’s not to say it’s an impossible task. Some colleges and universities are testing thousands of students and faculty each week.
“This can be done,” Lawler said. “We would just have to make the investment.”
There are other ways to improve testing for high-risk environments like meatpacking plants, nursing homes and prisons, Lawler said, such as building out labs so more PCR tests can be processed and testing community wastewater for traces of the coronavirus to help spot emerging outbreaks.
And testing alone isn’t the answer — it must be part of a layered strategy that also involves personal protective equipment and other infection control measures.
Godinez lives in Lexington, home to a Tyson plant. She said that testing should be made widely available to workers and their families and that results and other information must be translated into the multiple languages spoken by meatpackers.
She shared a testimonial written by the son of one meatpacking worker:
“Our essential workers like my mom and uncles are putting their lives on the line to put food on our tables every day,” he wrote. “They deserve rapid COVID-19 testing as they continue to feed our nation during this pandemic and critical economic situation. We love Husker football, but we love our families more.”
World-Herald staff writer Julie Anderson contributed to this report.
Our best staff images of September 2020
Pence arrives

Vice President Mike Pence arrives at Eppley Airfield in Omaha on Thursday, October 01, 2020. The vice president spoke at PVS Structures, a metal fabricator, in Carter Lake, Iowa as part of a Make America Great Again! campaign event.
Football Sunset

The sun sets over the David City Aquinas vs. Oakland-Craig football game at Oakland City Park in Oakland, Neb., on Friday, September 25, 2020. Oakland-Craig won the game 28-12.
Jump

Union Omaha's Elma N'For dribbles the ball against Richmond Kickers' defense.
Meal Time

Caleb Nissen, 19 months, eats dinner with his parents, Michael and Jessica Nissen, of Oakland, before the start of the David City Aquinas vs. Oakland-Craig football game at Oakland City Park in Oakland, Neb., on Friday, September 25, 2020. Oakland-Craig won the game 28-12.
Campaign

Charlene Ligon, chairwoman of the Sarpy County Democratic Party, introduces Jill Biden and Doug Emhoff at an event in Papillion on Saturday.
Spider Web

Paisley Gaver, 5, decorates her grandma’s yard for Halloween with stretchy spider webs in South Omaha on Friday, September 18, 2020.
Union Omaha New England

New England Revolution II's keeper Joseph Rice makes a save over the head of Union Omaha's Elma N'For.
Monarch

Some monarchs fly 3,000 miles to reach Mexico, where the insects overwinter.
Library

Debbie Cooley, of Omaha, visits the Omaha Public Library's Milton R. Abrahams branch on Monday, Sept. 21, 2020.
Millard South Bellevue West

Bellevue West's Ryan Rogers, right, hits Millard South's Taekwon Johnson, as he Johnson was trying to return a kick to start the second half.
Twirl

Millard North won the game 46-41 with a touchdown on the final play of the game. A Millard North baton twirler performs before the start of the Lincoln East vs. Millard North football game at Millard South High School in Omaha on Thursday, September 17, 2020.
Balance

Lincoln East's Austin Schneider (8) gets away from Millard North's Isaiah McMorris (8) in the Lincoln East vs. Millard North football game at Millard South High School in Omaha on Thursday, September 17, 2020. Millard North won the game 46-41 with a touchdown on the final play of the game.
Grand Jury

James Scurlock II has a tattoo that says, "Truth be told" on his arm as he answers questions about the charges filed against Jake Gardner in the killing of Scurlock's son, also named James.
Grand jury reaction

Protesters hug and celebrate the indictment of Jake Gardner on Tuesday at the corner of 50th Street and Underwood Avenue.
Focus

Elkhorn North's Hunter Richardson (1) looks to pass the ball in the Plattsmouth vs. Elkhorn North football game at Elkhorn High School on Friday, September 11, 2020. This is Elkhorn North's first home game in history. Plattsmouth won the game 34-7.
Sept. 11

A person runs with their dog near a display of American flags on Friday at Memorial Park in Omaha. The 2,977 flags represent the lives lost in the Sept 11 attacks 19 years ago.
Sept 11 Taps

John Herrmann, with the American Legion Honor and VFW honor detail plays Taps, during a 9/11 Remembrance Ceremony before the start of the Millard South and Millard West game.
Elkhorn-Waverly high school football

Elkhorn's Aiden Young dodges a tackle from Waverly 's Evan Canoyer.
Flu Shots

Reed Elias, 15, of Omaha, holds on to Molly, his family’s 8-month-old miniature schnauzer, while getting a shot from Kristy Gohr, a certified medical assistant, during a drive-thru flu shot clinic at a Methodist Physicians Clinic in Omaha on Thursday, Sept. 10, 2020.
September Images 1

The sun sets behind the Waverly stands during the Omaha Skutt vs. Waverly football game at Waverly High School in Waverly on Friday, September 4, 2020. Waverly won the game 17-7.
September Images 2

A Corona Extra display is seen wearing a mask at Wine, Beer and Spirits, 3435 Oak View Drive in Omaha on Tuesday, September 01, 2020.
September Images 3

Stalks of corn are browning near Winslow, Neb., on Wednesday, September 2, 2020.
September Images 4

Brothers-in-law Mark Policky, of Seward, and Kevin McGrath, of Lincoln, tailgate by themselves outside Memorial Stadium in Lincoln on Saturday, September 5, 2020. The Huskers were originally set to open the football season against Purdue at Memorial Stadium on Saturday. "This is kind of our protest against the Big Ten today," McGrath said. "We can't let the Huskers down," Policky added.
September Images 5

The parking to the east of Memorial Stadium has no tailgaters in Lincoln on Saturday, September 5, 2020. The Huskers were originally set to open the football season against Purdue at Memorial Stadium on Saturday.
September Images 6

A pedestrian walks in downtown Lincoln on Saturday, September 5, 2020. The Huskers were originally set to open the football season against Purdue at Memorial Stadium on Saturday.
September Images 7

People stand out on 42nd Street near Pacific Street to watch as Omaha police officers escort the body of Lincoln police officer Mario Herrera back to Lincoln after he died on Monday, September 07, 2020. Herrera was shot Aug. 26 while trying to serve a warrant.
September Images 8

Lincoln police officer Mario Herrera is escorted on Monday near 42nd and Grover in Omaha. Herrera passed away early Monday after being shot on duty August 26th.
September Images 9

Kristin Pehoviack and Audrey Lash feed sea lions at the new Owen Sea Lion Shores exhibit at the Omaha Henry Doorly Zoo.
September Images 10

Visitors get an up close view of a sea lion at the new Owen Sea Lion Shores exhibit at the Omaha Henry Doorly Zoo.
September Images 11

Elkhorn warms up as the sun starts to set before their game against Omaha Roncalli.
September Images 12

Todd Shannon, a parent of an Omaha Public Schools student speaks at a protest calling for the return of fall sports in the district.
September Images 13

A crosswalk sign is seen through a rain covered glass wall of a bus shelter on Farnam Street near 34th Strreet on Tuesday, September 08, 2020.
September Images 14

Omaha Roncalli's Quincy Evans stretches but can't pull down this third down pass in the third quarter in front of Elkhorn's Zach Leinen.
September Images 15

People watch the Omaha Skutt vs. Waverly football game from a hill outside the stadium at Waverly High School in Waverly on Friday, September 4, 2020.
September Images 16

Waverly takes the field for the Omaha Skutt vs. Waverly football game at Waverly High School in Waverly on Friday, September 4, 2020.
September Images 17

Millard South's Ryan Holdsworth (3) and Gage Stenger (12) celebrate a touchdown against Elkhorn South.
eduffy@owh.com, 402-444-1210