Saitone Tina L, Aleks Schaefer K, Scheitrum Daniel P
Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of California, Davis, United States.
Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics, Michigan State University, United States.
Food Policy. 2021 May;101:102072. doi: 10.1016/j.foodpol.2021.102072. Epub 2021 Apr 8.
In this paper, we investigate the extent to which the presence of a large meatpacking (i.e., beef, pork, and broiler chicken) plant has affected county-level COVID-19 transmission dynamics. We find that-within 150 days after emergence of COVID-19 in a given county-the presence of a large beef packing facility increases per capita infection rates by 110%, relative to comparable counties without meatpacking plants. Large pork and chicken processing facilities increase transmission rates by 160% and 20%, respectively. While the presence of this type of industrial agricultural facility is shown to exacerbate initial disease transmission affecting large numbers of individuals in the community, over time daily case rates converge such that rates observed in meatpacking- and non-meatpacking counties become similar. In aggregate, results suggest that 334 thousand COVID-19 infections are attributable to meatpacking plants in the U.S. with associated mortality and morbidity costs totaling more than $11.2 billion.
在本文中，我们研究了大型肉类加工厂（即牛肉、猪肉和肉鸡加工厂）的存在对县级新冠病毒传播动态的影响程度。我们发现，在某县出现新冠病毒后的150天内，大型牛肉加工厂的存在使人均感染率相对于没有肉类加工厂的可比县提高了110%。大型猪肉和鸡肉加工设施分别使传播率提高了160%和20%。虽然这类工业化农业设施的存在被证明会加剧影响社区中大量个体的初始疾病传播，但随着时间的推移，每日病例率会趋于一致，使得肉类加工县和非肉类加工县观察到的发病率变得相似。总体而言，结果表明，美国有33.4万例新冠病毒感染可归因于肉类加工厂，相关的死亡率和发病率成本总计超过112亿美元。
