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Hundreds of meat plant workers across the country have fallen ill with the coronavirus, leading to a slowdown in output and surge in prices.
By the numbers, per Bloomberg: The price of wholesale pork rose by 7.2% to 55.86 cents a pound Thursday — the largest increase in more than two years. Choice-grade beef prices rose to a one-month high of $2.36 a pound, climbing for six straight days through Thursday.
The increase in prices comes as Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest pork producer, announced three plant closures in recent days. Among those are a pork processing plant in Sioux Falls, S.D., At least 644 cases of the virus have been traced back to the plant.
Go deeper: Stores struggle to fill meat demand as coronavirus hits processing plants