COVID-19 hitting the meat production industry.

COVID-19 is starting to have a significant impact on US meat production, and a sizable portion of meatpacking plants in the US are now closed due to outbreaks among the workers. Working conditions inside big American meatpacking plants are already terrible (poor sanitation, confined spaces etc), and they have ended up as ideal incubators for the spread of the disease. Furthermore, most of these plants are situated in states with high rates of COVID. Workers are scared to show up, and while plants are taking some measures to improve hygiene and safety, breakouts are still happening.

As far as I can tell, this problem is not present in the UK, which has similar rates of COVID infections in general. However, UK meatpacking plants do not have the same careless high-throughput ... err... meat-grinder atmosphere. They don't rinse sloppily dissected carcasses with dilute chlorine like some US plants do.

(See this article from the UK worrying about the importation of dirty US meat: https://www.theguardian.com/animals-farmed/2018/feb/21/dirty-meat-shocking-hygiene-failings-discovered-in-us-pig-and-chicken-plants)

If this all leads to improvement in working conditions in US meatpacking plants, that would be a great second-order effect.

For now though, this may lead to a situation similar to what happened with crude oil except with animals, where there are a lot of pigs with nowhere to go. Demand for meat (especially higher priced meats like pork and beef) is likely to drop significantly as well -- during recessions, people tend to cut back on their meat consumption.

Ignore that this came from USA Today -- it's really thorough reporting:
https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/investigations/2020/04/22/meat-packing-plants-covid-may-force-choice-worker-health-food/2995232001/

I found an interactive map with closures as well:
https://www.drovers.com/article/interactive-map-meat-packing-plant-status-amid-covid-19-pandemic