Hundreds test positive for COVID-19 in German slaughterhouse
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Hundreds of workers have tested positive for COVID-19 at a slaughterhouse in northern Germany, prompting to the closure of local schools and an urgent investigation.
Toennies, one of Germany’s biggest meat processors, said it had stopped slaughtering on Wednesday and was shutting the abattoir in stages.
More than 1,000 workers were tested and a total of 657 people tested positive for coronavirus.
And around 7,000 people in the district of Gutersloh, where the abattoir is located, have been put into quarantine due to possible exposure of the virus.
The local government authority said it would close schools and kindergartens from Thursday as a precautionary measure.
Germany has been relatively successful in containing COVID-19 and announced in May it was tightening rules on abattoirs.
Meanwhile, the Berlin-Neukölln district where low income and migrant families live has been put in coronavirus lockdown
Some 369 households are under quarantine, after 70 people have tested positive, and hundreds of tests are pending. Concern is mounting in Berlin’s Neukölln district, the German capital’s COVID-19 hotbed.
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 770 to 188,534, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed on Friday.
The reported death toll rose by 16 to 8,872, the tally showed.
