If you were hoping for lots of barbecues this summer, you might be out of luck. The meat shortages that have been caused by coronavirus are now expected to last for months, which means they will likely be around for the entire summer. The shortages stem from employees at meat processing plants not showing up because they are either too sick or too scared of getting sick.
According to the New York Post, meat distributors, grocery store owners and restaurants think the problems will last well past July 4th. Vincent Pacifico, the president of Vista Food Exchange, a large meat wholesaler, explained, "We talk about this lasting until July or through August. It'll be a tough summer. You can't force people back to work if they are sick and scared."
Even though President Trump signed an executive order on April 28th allowing plants to stay open even when governors have closed facilities in their states, huge factories from some of the biggest operators remain closed because of how coronavirus has affected their employees. Five-thousand meat-processing workers have gotten COVID-19 and of them, 20 have died.
While some slaughterhouses have reopened, they are operating at just a third of their capacity. Many meatpackers are trying to put in partitions and spread their workers apart, but doing that also affects productivity.
All this means that when there actually is meat in the store, it will be much more expensive than customers are used to.
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