Mid-term Concerns: Food Supply

[rcjordan]

Meatpacking plants across the country are closing production as coronavirus continues its spread and infects and kills workers at facilities experiencing outbreaks, McClatchy News reported.

Experts have said supply has been able to hold on despite loss of production thus far, but that it won't last long.

"You could shut multiple plants down for a day or two, and we've got wiggle room to handle that," Glynn Tonsor, Kansas State University agriculture economist, told the AP. "But if you took four or five of those big plants ... and they had to be down for two weeks, then you've got a game changer."


Pork plant's closure will cause 'significant ramifications' to supplies, Tyson says | Belleville News-Democrat
https://www.bnd.com/news/nation-world/national/article242203371.html

-------------

COVID-19 Cases Now Tied to Meat Plants in Rural Texas Counties Wracked with Coronavirus
https://www.texasobserver.org/east-texas-coronavirus-chicken/

[littleman]

Pandemic could mean 260 million people worldwide 'marching toward starvation'

[rcjordan]

US: Mapping Covid-19 in meat and food processing plants | Food and Environment Reporting Network
https://thefern.org/2020/04/mapping-covid-19-in-meat-and-food-processing-plants/

[rcjordan]

Another Big Meat (Beef) Plant Shutters With U.S. on Brink of Shortages - Bloomberg
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-23/tyson-halts-pasco-plant-production-to-test-workers-for-covid-19

----------

Meat-Shortage Risk Climbs With 25% of U.S. Pork Capacity Offline - Bloomberg
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-22/tyson-foods-to-indefinitely-suspend-waterloo-operations-k9bbgnr9

[rcjordan]

^{Moving beyond meat-packing...}

Frozen foods plant stops production due to virus outbreak | democratherald.com

https://democratherald.com/news/state-and-regional/frozen-foods-plant-stops-production-due-to-virus-outbreak/article_ba513eb1-8d31-5f63-952d-99a229cc66bf.html

[ergophobe]

I think LM tipped us off about https://aprbiotech.com/ 

I ordered some too. In poking around, they are not on the EPA list and the CDC does not recommend them. Meanwhile, another company that also makes a product that uses Benzalkonium Chloride has done tests and says that it does kill SARS-COVID-2, but did their tests using a surrogate strain and it will likely be the end of the year before the research appears in a peer-reviewed journal and can be reviewed by the CDC.

Research on BKC
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195670120300463

CDC statement
- https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/hand-hygiene-faq.html#r2

EPA listing for BKC
- https://iaspub.epa.gov/sor_internet/registry/substreg/searchandretrieve/advancedsearch/externalSearch.do?p_type=SRSITN&p_value=156943

EPA registry for approved coronavirus disinfectants (use number 8001-54-5 for BKC)
- https://www.epa.gov/pesticide-registration/list-n-disinfectants-use-against-sars-cov-2#filter_col1

"EXCLUSIVE: Sanitizer opposed by CDC kills coronavirus "surrogate" in lab tests"
- https://wjla.com/news/nation-world/exclusive-sanitizer-opposed-by-cdc-kills-coronavirus-surrogate-in-lab-tests

[Brad]

>Benzalkonium Chloride

I use it as defense in depth.  I treat hands with the APRBiotech product before going out in public for it's 4 hour effect in general germ kill.  But I still carry and use alcohol based hand santizer while out just as if I had not used the APR product.  I wash hands immediately upon returning home with soap and water. 

I look at the BC based sanitizer as an additional layer of protection especially since alcohol based sanitizers are still in short supply.

Note: you can get alcohol hand santizers on Amazon, but they all have dubious brand names made up by somebody who does not speak English.  I don't trust those to be effective or have the ingredients claimed on the label.  All the name brand sanitizers are reserved for medical professionals.

[rcjordan]

America's ^(industrial)meat problems are about to get worse
https://theweek.com/speedreads/916461/americas-meat-problems-are-about-worse

[littleman]

I find it kinda hard to enjoy meat when workers at the pants are dying.  We stocked up before hand and I'm eating more of a flexitarian diet these days.