As Meat Plant Infections Rise, Canada Lets Packers Choose When to Close

A man works to sterilize meat processing and packaging equipment at the Maple Leaf Foods plant in Toronto on August 21, 2008. Mark Blinch/File Photo/Reuters

WINNIPEG—In Cargill Inc’s High River, Alberta plant, supplier of more than one-third of Canada’s beef, 391 workers were sick with COVID-19 when the company suspended operations, according to provincial health officials.

But Maple Leaf Foods decided to idle a poultry plant for eight days, in Brampton, Ontario, after just three workers were infected.