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Siler City

A small storefront has become a Latino grocery store called Tienda Centro reads the sign. Siler City has one of the highest rates of COVID infection in North Carolina

Latinos, the coronavirus and a single ZIP code

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Latinos, the coronavirus and a single ZIP code - North Carolina Health News

The 27344 ZIP code, which includes Siler City and Mountaire Farms, has become a hotspot for the coronavirus in North Carolina. Latinos who live in the ZIP code are suffering greatly, but nonprofit organizations can only do so much.

By Greg Barnes and Victoria Bouloubasis  This story is being co-published with Enlace Latino NC. Read it here in Spanish. Maricela Martinez still remembers getting her first paycheck from a chicken processing plant in Siler City — $280 for a week’s worth of work back in 1999. “It made me cry,” Martinez said. “This was […]

we look through a chain link fence into an industrial complex / poultry plantwhere multiple workers have tested positive for COVID-19

As COVID races through Mountaire Farms poultry plant, workers deemed vital feel dispensable

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As COVID races through Mountaire Farms poultry plant, workers deemed vital feel dispensable - North Carolina Health News

Mountaire criticized for moving too slowly to protect workers who weren’t aware of coronavirus cases in workplace.

By Victoria Bouloubasis and Greg Barnes This story is being co-published with Enlace Latino NC. Read it here in Spanish. On a rapidly moving production line at Mountaire Farms in Siler City, Ana uses a sharp knife to slice the wings off a chicken in less than two seconds, making sure they land into a […]

Raw chickens hang from wires at a poultry plant. Poultry companies are selling chicken for cheap amidst coroanvirus

Poultry companies selling chicken cheap out of the back of trucks

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Poultry companies selling chicken cheap out of the back of trucks - North Carolina Health News

Companies say the sales are a way to be good corporate citizens during the pandemic, but there are also other forces at play.

By Greg Barnes Maggie Hooks waited in a long line of vehicles that snaked from behind the Salemburg Fire Department to Main Street and far beyond. Hooks and hundreds of others — perhaps more people than this small Sampson County town has residents — were there to get chicken that the House of Raeford was […]

The Smithfield Foods processing plant in Tar Heel employs up to 5,000 workers and slaughters 30,000 to 35,000 hogs a day: Photo credit: Melissa Sue Garrets, The Fayetteville Observer

Two more processing plants identified as having coronavirus outbreaks

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Two more processing plants identified as having coronavirus outbreaks - North Carolina Health News

The state says 190 workers at seven meat and poultry processing plants have tested positive for COVID-19. That’s up from 118 on Tuesday.

By Greg Barnes Two more meat processing plants in North Carolina are experiencing coronavirus outbreaks, bringing the total number of meat and poultry plants with COVID outbreaks to seven, state health officials announced Thursday. The state Department of Health and Human Services still won’t name the plants or say how many workers have tested positive […]

shows hog carcasses hanging in a processing plant.

Coronavirus invading N.C. meat processing plants

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Coronavirus invading N.C. meat processing plants - North Carolina Health News

Five processing plants, including the mammoth Smithfield Foods pork processing plant in Tar Heel, are experiencing outbreaks of the coronavirus, state health officials say.

By Greg Barnes Additional contributions by Enlace Latino NC staff It didn’t take long for the coronavirus to sweep through a Smithfield Foods plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. On March 26, the plant announced its first case of COVID-19. By April 13, more than 300 workers had tested positive. Today the plant is considered […]

A building shot of a red brick structure, this is Chatham Hospital, where a new maternity unit will soon open.

New maternity unit will put family docs at the helm

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New maternity unit will put family docs at the helm - North Carolina Health News

Amidst a trend of rural maternity unit closures across the state, Chatham Hospital announced it will open the 5-bed maternity unit in September 2020.

By Liora Engel-Smith The mural at the corner of Siler City’s Chatham Avenue and Beaver Street describes what was. Created to depict life in the town in 1910, it shows several one- or two-story buildings and a wide dirt road. One building in the mural has a visible sign, an ode to what was the […]

A little girl drinking water among other people. This photo was taken at the Giving Spoon to illustrate food insecurity.

Food insecurity in Chatham represents larger economic trend

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Food insecurity in Chatham represents larger economic trend - North Carolina Health News

In places left out of the recovery, low wages and job insecurity drive expanding need, while politics may create more roadblocks to aid.

Keith Barber Carolina Public Press Chatham County, at the state’s geographical center, is home to 68,778 residents, 7,480 of whom are food insecure, according to data compiled by the Food Bank of Central & Eastern North Carolina. In Chatham County, roughly one in nine people are struggling with food insecurity, which is slightly less than […]

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