Smithfield Foods offers COVID-19 shots at Sioux Falls plant

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — Smithfield Foods in Sioux Falls is making it easier for some of its employees to get the coronavirus vaccine. The company is offering COVID-19 shots Friday at the food processing plant where hundreds of workers have been infected with the virus since the pandemic began.

Five-hundred doses of the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine come from the South Dakota Department of Health and will be administered by Avera Health.

The plant in Sioux Falls employs about 3,600 workers.

At least 1,294 Smithfield workers contracted coronavirus since the pandemic began, and four employees died from complications in the spring of 2020, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

Food industry workers fall under the 1E category on the vaccination eligibility list. That group was opened to vaccine availability this week.

March 26, 2021