As soon as she heard about a cluster of coronavirus cases at the Tyson pork processing plant on the edge of Columbus Junction, Iowa, Cindy Johnston felt a ripple effect through her small community along the Iowa River.
Ms. Johnston, who manages a Dairy Sweet burgers and ice cream shack, sent home four teenage employees because their parents work at the Tyson plant. Parents of other teenage workers were too afraid of potential infection to let their children report to work at Dairy Sweet. Then, she learned of the death of an employee at the Tyson plant; it was the father of a classmate of her son.
“I’ve lived in this community all my life, and I’ve never seen it so scared,” said Ms. Johnston, who is 52, nearly the same age as the father who died.
Across the country, some big cities on the coasts are starting to experience a leveling off of Covid-19 cases, but a staggering number of small Midwestern towns anchored by meatpacking plants and other factories are finding themselves as new hot spots of the virus.
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