COVID-19 emergency and production of the space of contagion in meat plants territories in Brazil and in the USA

Abstract

Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, meat processing plants in Brazil and the United States have become centers of contagion for the disease. From a geographical point of view, the chronology of the contagion suggests that the plants acted in the subsequent spatialization of Covid-19 in their territories, reaching communities of immigrant workers, indigenous people and neighboring municipalities. Specific sanitary characteristics, added to corporate pressures, the non-compliance or absence of sanitary norms for the prevention and control of Covid-19 and the definition of the meat processing industry as an essential activity by governments are the main factors for the spread of Covid-19 in meat plants. This paper analyzes the role of animal protein industry in the emergence and production of the space of the contagio of Covid-19 in plants controlled by BRF in the Brazilian municipality of Concordia, in Santa Catarina and the municipalities of Cold Spring and Worthington in the state of Minnesota, in the United States. We analyze the spatialization of contagion through a multidimensional and multiscale perspective, considering the correlations between political, economic, health and epidemiological aspects. We suggest that meat plants acted as accelerating spaces for the Covid-19 contagion on their territories, impacting the scale and internalization of the pandemic both in Brazil and in the US.