German slaughterhouse corporation COVID-19 scandal

This video from Germany says about itself:

Ruptly is live from Rheda-Wiedenbrueck on Wednesday, June 17, 2020, after 400 employees of meat processing company Tönnies tested positive for coronavirus.

The Guetersloh district authorities have decided to shut down the operations at the meat company and close all schools and daycare centres until the summer holidays.

Tönnies is going through their second wave of COVID-19 infection this year.

The meat industry has been criticised for not respecting coronavirus hygiene and safety rules since the pandemic started, leading to concerns, as some 130,000 people are employed in 1,500 slaughterhouses across Germany.

Then, it was still ´only´ 400 infected workers …

Tönnies is the biggest meat processing corporation in Germany.

Germany: Alarm mood at the meat baron Tönnies: here. When that article was written, it was still ´only´ 657 infected workers …

Translated from Dutch NOS radio today:

The corona outbreak in the German meat processing company Tönnies is spreading further. 1029 employees turned out to be infected, compared to almost 700 earlier this week. Two-thirds of the infected workers work in the cutting department.

All 7000 employees of the company in North Rhine-Westphalia are in quarantine. The German health minister Lauterbach has closed the plant. He thinks it is “not responsible” to keep the business open because the source of the infections has still not been discovered.

“Did it happen in the canteen, on the way in, while working or is it the ventilation?” he wonders.

Clemens Tönnies, the millionaire boss of the slaughterhouses, is also the owner of the football club Schalke 04. Schalke 04 players dislike him because of his racist views on Africans: here.

UPDATE 21 June 2020: meanwhile, 1553 Tönnies workers infected.