HOLLAND — Five Kraft Heinz employees at the company’s Holland plant are self-quarantining at home after two tested positive for COVID-19.

The two employees who tested positive for coronavirus were in close contact with three other employees, which are being treated as presumptive cases, according to Michael Mullen, Kraft Heinz senior vice president of corporate and government affairs.

The positive cases were confirmed over the past week, Mullen said, and the Holland plant was closed Sunday for a deep cleaning and reopened Monday, April 20.

"As always, the health and safety of our employees is our top priority," Mullen said in a statement. "From the beginning of this outbreak, we have asked any employee who feels unwell to stay home and seek medical assistance."

Employees also tested positive for COVID-19 at Boar’s Head Brand in Holland, and JBS Meat Packaging, located south of Plainwell in Gun Plain Township.

The JBS meat packing plant reopened after having to shut down because 60 of its workers tested positive for the virus, according to WOOD TV-8 reports.

In a statement, Boar’s Head Brand said multiple employees had confirmed positive cases of COVID-19. Elizabeth Ward, senior director of marketing and communications for Boar’s Head Brand declined to release the number of positive cases in Holland.

"Out of respect for our employees' legal privacy, we will not confirm COVID-19 individual cases in our facilities," Ward said in an email.

According to a prepared statement, safety measures at Boar’s Head include frequent daily deep cleaning throughout the facility, increased distancing within common areas and manufacturing spaces when possible, and temperature checks before entering the facility.

More than 150 of America’s largest meat processing plants operate in counties where the rate of coronavirus infection is already among the nation’s highest, based on the media outlets’ analysis of slaughterhouse locations and county-level COVID-19 infection rates.

As companies scramble to contain the outbreaks by closing more than a dozen U.S. plants so far – including a Smithfield pork plant in South Dakota that handles 5 percent of U.S. pork production – the crisis has raised the specter of mass meat shortages.

But experts say there's little risk of a dwindling protein supply because, given the choice between worker safety and keeping meat on grocery shelves, the nation’s slaughterhouses will choose to produce food.

"If this goes on for a long time, there is a reality of a shortage," said Joshua Specht, an assistant professor of history at the University of Notre Dame who studies the meat industry. "The politics of this could play out that they reopen at enormous risks to workers, rather than face an actual shortage … I wouldn’t bet against that."

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services reported nearly 1,000 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, April 22. According to the latest figures from MDHHS, there were 999 new cases and 113 new deaths from COVID-19 reported on Wednesday.

Michigan now has a total of 33,966 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 2,813 deaths.

The Ottawa County Department of Public Health reported 150 total cases on Wednesday, along with seven previously reported deaths, with 26 recovered cases.

The Allegan County Health Department reported 52 positive COVID-19 cases and zero deaths so far as of Wednesday.

Mullen said safety measures that will be taken by the Kraft Heinz include supplying all U.S. manufacturing facilities with face masks, which will arrive "in the next day or so." Temperature checks of employees before they enter facilities will start being conducted this week as well, he said.

Employees are asked to monitor their own health for COVID-19 symptoms, Mullen said, and there are contingency plans to keep plants operating if employees need to stay home if they are sick.

Touch points within the facility are disinfected every four hours, he said, and break rooms have been redesigned, as well as staggering break and lunch times.

— Contact reporter Kate Carlson at kcarlson@hollandsentinel.com and follow her on Twitter @SentinelKate and @BizHolland.