Germany: 400 virus cases at slaughterhouse in new outbreak

BERLIN (AP) — More than 400 new cases of COVID-19 have been recorded among workers at a large meatpacking plant in western Germany, authorities said Wednesday, in an outbreak that may have been linked to the easing of travel restrictions.

The new cluster centers on a slaughterhouse operated by the Toennies Group in Rheda-Wiedenbrueck, authorities in Guetersloh county said. Company officials say it may have been linked to workers taking the opportunity to visit their families in eastern European countries as border controls were relaxed.

Authorities tested 1,050 people at the plant on Tuesday. So far, 589 results are in and over 400 of them are positive, the local council said. Officials ordered the closure of the slaughterhouse, as well as isolation and tests for everyone else who had worked at the Toennies site — putting about 7,000 people under quarantine.

The infections pushed the region above the threshold of 50 new infections per 100,000 residents over a week at which local authorities in Germany have to consider new restrictions. Officials decided to close schools and child care centers across the county from Thursday until the summer vacation starts near the end of the month, but chose to avoid a wider-ranging lockdown.

There have been several outbreaks at German slaughterhouses in recent weeks, prompting the government to impose stricter safety rules for the industry and ban the practice of using sub-contractors.

The outbreak in Rheda-Wiedenbrueck, one of Germany's biggest slaughterhouses, could cut the available supply of meat in Germany. Sven-Georg Adenauer, head of the regional administration, said a fifth of Germany's meat products could be unavailable while the plant is shut, the dpa news agency reported.

Gereon Schulze Althoff, the Toennies official in charge of the company's pandemic response,...