SOUTH DAKOTA — Virginia-based Smithfield Foods announced Sunday that it is closing its pork processing plant in Sioux Falls until further notice after hundreds of employees tested positive for the coronavirus – a step the head of the company warned could severely hurt the nation’s meat supply.
The plant, which employs about 3,700 people in the state’s largest city, has become a hotspot for infections. Health officials said Sunday that 293 of the 730 people who have been diagnosed with COVID-19 in South Dakota work at the plant.