Salon refuses to serve Tyson Foods employees over local plant's COVID-19 outbreak

SmartCuts salon in Wilkesboro, North Carolina, says it will not serve Tyson Foods employees following news of a massive COVID-19 outbreak in one of the neighboring Tyson facilities.

Last week, Tyson Foods announced that hundreds of its employees at a North Carolina plant tested positive for coronavirus. The announcement pointed out that the high number accounted for at least 25% of its workforce. The majority of cases were reportedly asymptomatic.

What are the details?

The store shared a memo with its clients via a storefront sign on Tuesday, and it went viral.

According to Newsweek, SmartCuts will offer employees impacted by the policy discounts once restrictions are lifted.

A portion of the letter reads:

To our clients who currently work at Tyson — we appreciate and care for you very much and hope the current Covid 19 outbreak you are dealing with subsides quickly! However, given the close contact experienced during our services, we will be unable to serve Tyson employees until approximately June 8, once the recent Covid 19 outbreak has been controlled and enough time has passed.

Anything else?

In April, Tyson Foods Chairman John Tyson announced that the "food supply chain" is breaking due to COVID-19.

In a widely published editorial, Tyson wrote, "As pork, beef and chicken plants are being forced to close, even for short periods of time, millions of pounds of meat will disappear from the supply chain."

"As a result, there will be limited supply of our products available in grocery stores until we are able to reopen our facilities that are currently closed," he added.

"In addition to meat shortages, this is a serious food waste issue," Tyson noted. "The food supply chain is breaking."