Language barriers were a key issue at the Smithfield meat processing plant that was shuttered earlier this month after a coronavirus outbreak infected 800 employees, according to a report from the Centers for Disease control and Prevention.
The CDC report issued this week criticized a number of practices at the plant in Sioux Falls, which processed 5 percent of the nation's pork before it was shuttered indefinitely on April 15.
The massive plant employing 3,500 is just one of a dozen American meat packing plants to shut down this month after outbreaks, spurring pork and beef shortages and higher prices for consumers.
The CDC report says that at the Sioux Falls plant, which has a large immigrant workforce, some 40 different languages are spoken, with the top 10 being English, Spanish, Kunama, Swahili, Nepali, Tigrinya, Amharic, French, Oromo, and Vietnamese.
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