To expand on that, if half the workers are home and the other half are actually essential the chances that whomever was actually exposed first and brought it to the plant would have actually been working from home is 50% (sort of - not everyone has a similar sphere of contact, and some overlap, and…). More over if the whole state was under a stay-at-home order chances are high that whoever brought it to the plant even if they were essential would not have been exposed to it go up.
So while you can’t say “no wouldn’t have happened with a stay-at-home order in place” it is easy to see why the chance would have gone way down. (not to zero because there is some chance you could draw an unbroken line from a worker to someone who had it before a stay-at-home would likely have been issued that only touches essential workers, or connects people living in the same homes…and someone who worked at the plant could have gotten it from a grocery store worker…)
If this is true, let’s not leave management of the plant/company blameless. They could have exercised their corporation’s individual “personhood” rights and split their workforce to lessen internal exposure.
And they could have made it clear that if a worker (or worker family member) were sick, they were to stay home for 14 days (with paid sick leave).
Democracy in action, I guess. The voters wanted an idiot and an idiot they got. At least there is lots of farm equipment available to dig mass graves if need be although finding operators might become more and more difficult.
Yes, although sometimes past mistakes make this harder. I work for a company with an official policy of “if you are sick, stay home, don’t try to be a hero and get others sick!”. It even shows up on walls around flu season. I have never heard of anyone getting in trouble for calling in sick, but lots of people come in and work while sick, and some have indeed been called heroes for “working through a difficult time”. (note: this is at a work place where a lot of things could even be done remotely).
I have no doubt some people in the management chain, maybe even the majority of them thought the sick policy of “stay home!” was a good one, but it wasn’t really carried out. When COVID-19 came they had to face the reality that they already had a decent policy, but it wasn’t being followed and had to strengthen it with “please stay home and report symptoms to XXX and call YYY, if you develop symptoms during the day go home and contact your manager form home, if others notice symptoms we will send you home”.
(and yes my own example shows an existence proof that you can get yourself out of that hole, if your management chain is aware of what is really happening)
At any rate, sure, the meat processing plant is also to blame.
