Kansas softened its quarantine guidelines for meatpacking plants after industry executives repeatedly pushed state officials to allow employees who were potentially exposed to the coronavirus to keep working, text messages and emails show. The Kansas City Star and The Wichita Eagle reported that they obtained messages through an open records request showing that executives at Tyson and National Beef pushed Kansas Secretary of Agriculture Mike Beam to advocate more-lenient federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance. Beam told The Associated Press on Wednesday that his role was to “emphasize internally” in Gov. Laura Kelly’s administration that there would be major problems with the nation’s food supply if the plants shut down. Beam worked for the Kansas Livestock Association for 38 years before becoming agriculture secretary in 2019. “It was a balancing act, and I basically was feeding that into the mix,” he said.
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