Smithfield sausage plant resumes limited work; one worker died of COVID-19

The Smithfield sausage-making plant in St. Charles reopened with limitations Wednesday under terms agreed upon by the company, state and Kane County health departments and the Illinois attorney general.

The health department announced the move Friday morning, while also announcing that one of the plant's workers died of COVID-19.

The department had ordered the plant to shut down April 24 because of a COVID-19 outbreak, and Smithfield agreed to the closure April 25.

According to Kane County health officials, the plant now can process and package the meat it already had on hand. It is not accepting any new raw food product for processing.

To fully reopen, the plant must develop a plan to control infectious disease that meets guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and the state health department.

That plan will have to be submitted to the county health department.

Smithfield also is paying to have every plant worker tested for COVID-19.

Health officials did not give the name, age or sex of the worker who died, or when they died.

Smithfield is one of the world's largest pork-processing companies. It is a subsidiary of a Chinese company based in Wuhan, China.

The federal Food Safety and Inspection Service has posted a page of frequently-asked questions about COVID-19. It says the disinfecting procedures food plants do normally for food safety should also help prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Plants are not required to tell the FSIS if they have an employee sick with COVID-19.

The FSIS says it probably is not possible to follow the 6-foot social-distancing guidelines in food-packing plants.

It also says it has no reported cases of people catching COVID-19 from food or food packaging.