We have known for more than a month that meat processing plants are liable to become a focus for Covid-19 transmission. At one stage, such plants accounted for roughly half of all new infections in the USA and there was even a major outbreak at a processing factory in Anglesey (Wales). The most obvious features of such industries, where animals are slaughtered and the meats packaged, are a) people working closely together (perhaps with a somewhat cavalier attitude to distancing and cleanliness?) and b) masses of cold, damp surfaces on which the virus can persist. Given this knowledge, it is all the more surprising that there has been a major rekindling of the pandemic in Gutersloh, Germany just when the country was coming out of lockdown (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/22/meat-plant-must-be-held-to-account-covid-19-outbreak-germany). More than 1,500 workers appear to have been infected at what is Europe's largest meat packaging plant. We really have to learn a bit quicker and put very stringent (and well 'policed') requirements into such establishments.
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