School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027.
Booth School of Business, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2020 Dec 15;117(50):31706-31715. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2010115117. Epub 2020 Nov 19.
Policy responses to the COVID-19 outbreak must strike a balance between maintaining essential supply chains and limiting the spread of the virus. Our results indicate a strong positive relationship between livestock-processing plants and local community transmission of COVID-19, suggesting that these plants may act as transmission vectors into the surrounding population and accelerate the spread of the virus beyond what would be predicted solely by population risk characteristics. We estimate the total excess COVID-19 cases and deaths associated with proximity to livestock plants to be 236,000 to 310,000 (6 to 8% of all US cases) and 4,300 to 5,200 (3 to 4% of all US deaths), respectively, as of July 21, 2020, with the vast majority likely related to community spread outside these plants. The association is found primarily among large processing facilities and large meatpacking companies. In addition, we find evidence that plant closures attenuated county-wide cases and that plants that received permission from the US Department of Agriculture to increase their production-line speeds saw more county-wide cases. Ensuring both public health and robust essential supply chains may require an increase in meatpacking oversight and potentially a shift toward more decentralized, smaller-scale meat production.
应对 COVID-19 疫情的政策措施必须在保持基本供应链和限制病毒传播之间取得平衡。我们的研究结果表明，牲畜加工厂与 COVID-19 在当地社区的传播之间存在很强的正相关关系，这表明这些工厂可能成为向周边人群传播的媒介，并加速病毒的传播，超出仅根据人口风险特征预测的传播速度。我们估计，截至 2020 年 7 月 21 日，与靠近牲畜加工厂相关的 COVID-19 病例和死亡的总超额病例数分别为 236,000 至 310,000（占美国所有病例的 6%至 8%）和 4,300 至 5,200（占美国所有死亡人数的 3%至 4%），其中绝大多数可能与这些工厂以外的社区传播有关。这种关联主要存在于大型加工设施和大型肉类加工企业中。此外，我们还发现证据表明，工厂关闭可减轻全县范围的病例数，而获得美国农业部许可提高生产线速度的工厂则出现了更多的全县范围的病例。确保公共卫生和健全的基本供应链可能需要加强对肉类加工厂的监督，并可能需要向更分散、更小规模的肉类生产方式转变。
