Even though my weeks now always end where they began — at home, going mostly nowhere due to COVID-19 — the weekends still have become such a welcome retreat. This past long holiday weekend was especially a refreshing break after a hectic week of trying to get a very dense, comprehensive magazine issue done on time.

With the summer weather that arrived in the Chicago area, I was able to enjoy my backyard, watch my kids play with water guns, grill burgers, hot dogs and steaks, and drink some cold beer. Everything seemed like it should be, as if it were any other Memorial Day weekend.

Other than having to mask up for a trip to the grocery store, I almost forgot about the whole pandemic thing. And as restrictions relax across the nation, I wonder if, in our exhaustion and impatience, we all generally are more or less trying to “forget” it all away.

The idea of that is a pretty absurd oversimplification, I know — particularly if you’re in the meat industry and you’ve seen thousands of illnesses, dozens of deaths and unprecedented market shocks. But then again, when you’ve received a presidential green light to keep going — no matter what — do those numbers matter anymore?

I wonder how Pete Ricketts, governor of the meatpacking-centric state of Nebraska, would answer that question. Earlier this month, he decided the state would no longer report additional COVID-19 cases from meatpacking plants. With allegations of data manipulation facing him, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s answer also would be interesting. Certainly their answers would have to be more nuanced than just, “No.”

Like leaders in the meat industry, governors and other officials have to weigh and balance the health of their economies with the health of their constituents. I understand the urgency of restoring business and jobs in order to stabilize the country, and there are all sorts of numbers to gauge the economy’s health. I don’t understand how you measure the health of your constituents, however, without reporting and comparing those numbers, too.

The CDC’s latest numbers show that the daily amount of new COVID-19 cases are on a decline, albeit — as there are still intermittent spikes — a gradual one. And a gradual decline is likely the most that the meat industry can hope for. The Colorado Department of Health’s numbers, as of May 21, showed that cases at JBS USA’s Greeley, Colo., beef plant — an example I use because the data is actually available, and it represents one of the largest of such facilities in the nation — were 246, meaning they didn’t budge since the beginning of the month.

Meat plants across the nation have tried all manner of preventive measures to try and protect workers in their facilities, which, having developed from a model dependent on economies of scale, were largely not designed to provide distance between people on production lines. But even if you contend that COVID-19’s spread among meatpacking workforces is more the result of conditions in communities surrounding plants than conditions inside those facilities, you’re acknowledging conditions nonetheless that could help the virus linger for a long time yet to come.

It would be great to see those numbers come down. First, they must continue to be reported (applause to the companies and agencies doing so).

I’m sure that a virus of this complexity can survive even under the rug.

Lest we ‘forget’

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