Cedar Meats reopens after second coronavirus closure

Cedar Meats has reopened after all staff were tested and forced into isolation for a second time, following a worker testing positive to coronavirus last week.

Cedar Meats has welcomed mandatory temperature checks for abattoir workers in Victoria, saying it has done so since it reopened at the end of May. Picture: Darrian Traynor/Getty Images

CEDAR Meats abattoir in Melbourne has reopened today after it closed last Friday when a worker tested positive to coronavirus.

The Brooklyn site, which was the centre of an outbreak linked to 111 people in May, announced on Friday a worker had tested positive to the virus, sending all workers into isolation for a second time.

A company spokeswoman said all staff had been tested over the weekend and there was no community transmission of the virus at the site.

The worker who had tested positive was last at the abattoir on Wednesday, July 22.

Cedar Meats is the thirteenth Victorian meat processor to have workers test positive to coronavirus last month and is under 2km from JBS Australia’s Brooklyn site, which has been linked to 86 coronavirus cases.

Cedar Meats said it welcomed Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews’ announcement yesterday of significant changes to the way abattoirs would operate in Victoria as of midnight Friday, including temperature checks and medical level PPE.

“Cedar Meats already has these measures in place and believes these latest test results show that these measures work,” the spokeswoman said.

The abattoir only became fully operational again a little over two months ago, after it was forced to stop processing livestock for about a month. The site had been completely shutdown for 18 days.

At the time, both Cedar Meats and authorities were criticised for their handling of the outbreak, including not initially identifying the abattoir and not closing it sooner.