Another worker at the American poultry company Foster Farms died of complications due to COVID-19 over the weekend, making him the 12th employee of the California-based company to die after contracting the coronavirus.
According Los Angeles Times, the worker’s family said the employee, who was a descendant of Punjabi and in her 50s, worked at the Foster Farms’ Cherry Avenue plant in Fresno, California.
After being diagnosed with COVID-19, the man spent the last three weeks in the intensive care unit of a local hospital before he died, according to Deep Singh, executive director of the Jakara Movement, a non-profit organization for youth and families from the Central Valley that works with the Punjabi Sikh Community.
Singh told the Times that the worker’s family believes he contracted the virus at work because he avoided leaving the house except to go to the factory or for other essential reasons.
The man is the third Fresno plant worker to die from COVID-19, with nine additional coronavirus deaths linked to the Foster Farms plant in Livingston, California.
According to Foster Farms, at least 193 people at the Fresno plant tested positive for COVID-19, about 20% of its workers.
Singh said the poultry company should have done more to protect its employees, accusing the business of “a lack of concern and protection that prioritizes the safety of workers and their families”.
The company also received criticism for poor communication with its workers, giving guidance in English, although many company employees have limited language proficiency.
Foster Farms had previously been investigated for its way of dealing with the pandemic, with community leaders telling the Times that the company asked its employees to work overtime in the middle of the pandemic.
Days before Christmas, a Merced County judge granted a temporary restraining order requested by the United Farm Workers of America union against Foster Farms.
The order required Foster Farms to supply workers at its Livingston plant with face masks and demanded that workers wear them when social distance was not possible, The Associated Press reported.
The order also determined that the company must carry out temperature and health tests for workers and visitors before entering the factory, as well as physical partitions in rest rooms and along production lines.
In response to the most recent death, Foster Farms said in a statement to The Hill: “We are saddened by the death at our Cherry Street plant and, out of respect for family and loved ones, we are unable to provide further details.”
“Our rate of positivity at the plant since mid-December has continued to decline,” the company added in a statement. “Testing all employees twice a week, we now have a positivity rate of less than 1%. This compares to a positivity rate in Fresno County of more than 10%. “
Foster Farms had temporarily closed its factory in Livingston In the beggining of september after an outbreak that led to almost 400 coronavirus infections and was responsible for eight deaths.
An outbreak two weeks ago at the Fresno plant also caused it to temporarily close, although it was reopened later, AP reported.
—Updated at 9:06 pm