DELPHI – A second confirmed case of coronavirus in as many days among the workforce at Indiana Packers Corp. – this one in someone who worked on the production floor at the Delphi pork producing plant – was confirmed by company officials Friday.

“We ask our team members to understand a positive case was bound to happen, and now we have two,” the company wrote in a letter sent to employees Thursday evening, a few hours after Indiana Packers announced that it learned that an employee working in a front office had tested positive for coronavirus and had been home in isolation since Tuesday.

The second case, involving “a team member on second shift in the tail popping area of the cut floor,” was reported to the company Thursday evening, according to the letter.

Mark Berry, vice president for human relations, said the letter was accurate. He said the company had hoped the meat packing plant, with nearly 2,500 employees, had hoped to avoid what he called “the inevitable” amid the pandemic.

“But one of the reasons we’ve dodged the bullet, to some degree, that some of our competitors face is that we’re almost two months out after we first started putting in plans to continue to operate,” Berry said. “And these are the first times we’ve had any positive cases confirmed, because we followed that protocol.”
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