Iowa City, Iowa – Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds said Monday that Iowa’s meatpacking plants will stay open and continue to spread the coronavirus among workers.

Reynolds warned at a news conference that shutting the plants down would be devastating for farmers and the food supply. She acknowledged that COVID-19 spreads quickly and easily at the plants because so many workers are in close proximity. She said that “we will continue to see clusters of positive cases” in them.

“But these are also essential businesses and an essential workforce,” she said. “Without them, people’s lives and our food supply will be impacted. So we must do our part to keep them open in a safe and responsible way.”

If plants close, farmers would have to euthanize animals scheduled to be sold to plants and the price of food would skyrocket, Reynolds told reporters.

Coronavirus outbreaks at Tyson Foods pork plants in Columbus Junction and Waterloo and a National Beef plant in Tama have contributed to a surge in positive cases in Iowa in recent days. Other plants across the state, from Marshalltown and Perry, have confirmed cases as well.

Last Friday, the Douglas County Health Department in Omaha confirmed that two employees of Tyson Foods in Council Bluffs tested positive for COVID-19 on April 14, Pottawattamie County authorities said in a news release.

The Tama beef plant resumed production Monday after a two-week shutdown, employees said, despite the news that 177 workers out of more than 500 tested were positive. Tyson Foods also said that its pork plant in Waterloo remained open, defying pleas from the mayor and other officials to temporarily close for cleaning and additional testing of workers.

Tyson Foods said a two-week shutdown at its Columbus Junction pork plant, where at least 148 workers have tested positive and two have died, ended last Tuesday as it resumed limited operations. Its plant in Perry, Iowa closed last Monday for a one-day cleaning, a spokeswoman said.

Reynolds said that she doesn’t have plans to use her emergency powers to temporarily close plants. She said Iowa produces about one-third of the nation’s pork and said the state’s most important objective was “keeping that food supply chain moving.”

If hogs are unable to be processed, farmers may “have to be talking about euthanizing” them, the governor said. “We’re not that far from it and it will be devastating not only for the food supply but for the cost of food moving forward,” she said.

The governor said state officials would respond quickly to cases at the plants by making tests available and working to isolate those sick and potentially exposed. The state is also helping plants make plans to operate at partial capacity when workers refuse to show up or stay home sick, she said.

The governor’s comments outraged state Sen. Bill Dotzler, a Waterloo Democrat who has called for stricter rules for the plants. The legislator has alleged that Tyson’s plant is endangering workers and the broader Waterloo community with little oversight.

“Before I’m going to worry about hogs, I’m going to worry about the deaths here in Black Hawk County because I think people are more important,” Dotzler said. “It’s sickening.”

Dotzler said many of the workers are refugees who do not speak English and have few other employment options. Still, hundreds of the city’s roughly 3,000 workers stayed home in recent days.

Latinos and Hispanics account for nearly a fifth of Iowa’s confirmed coronavirus cases – more than three times their share of the state’s population, data show.