Another employee of the American poultry company Foster Farms died due to complications caused by COVID-19 over the weekend, making him the 12th employee of the California corporation who died after contracting the coronavirus.
In accordance with Los Angeles Times, the worker’s family said the employee, who was of Punjabi descent and in the 1950s, worked at the Cherry Avenue factory in Foster Farms 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 dying, according to Deep Singh, executive director of the Jakara Movement, a youth and nonprofit family in Central Valley working with the Punjabi Sikh Community.
Singh told the Times that the worker’s family believes he contracted the virus at work because he avoided going outside his home, in addition to going 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-related deaths at 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 percent of its workers.
Singh said the poultry company should have done more to protect its staff, accusing the business of a “worrying lack and protection that prioritises the safety of workers and their families.”
The company has also received criticism for poor communication with its employees, offering instruction in English, even though many of the company’s workforce have limited language skills.
Foster Farms previously went under control for pandemic management, with community leaders telling the Times that the company asked employees to work overtime during the pandemic.
A few days before Christmas, a judge from Merced County granted a temporary restraining order sought 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 to require workers to wear them when social distancing is not possible, The Associated Press reported.
The order also provided that the company must have temperature and health checks for workers and visitors before entering the plant, as well as physical separators in break rooms and along production lines.
In response to the latest death, Foster Farms said in a statement to The Hill: “We are saddened by the death at our factory on Cherry Street and, out of respect for family and loved ones, cannot provide further details.”
“Our plant positivity rate since mid-December continues to decline,” the company said in a statement. “Testing all employees twice a week, we are now at a positivity rate of less than 1%. This compares with a positivity rate in Fresno County that exceeds 10%. “
Foster Farms it temporarily closed its Livingston plant in early September following an outbreak that led to nearly 400 coronavirus infections and resulted in eight deaths.
An outbreak two weeks ago at the Fresno plant caused a temporary closure, although it later reopened, the AP reported.
—Updated at 9:06 p.m.