LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Nearly one out of six coronavirus cases in Nebraska have been linked to the state’s meatpacking plants.
Gov. Pete Ricketts says public health officials have linked about 1,005 of Nebraska’s 6,771 coronavirus cases to meatpacking plants.
Nebraska’s small, mostly rural meatpacking communities have become some of the biggest hot spots both statewide and nationally, with Hall County surpassing the much larger Omaha area.
Ricketts says he's learned from the state's early efforts to contain the spread of the virus, but argues that critics are trying to “Monday morning quarter back” on a pandemic the state hasn’t faced since the 1918 Spanish flu outbreak.
Advocates for the meatpacking workers say the governor and local public health officials should have done more.