'US food supply is strong, safe': Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue is telling Americans the U.S. food supply "is strong, resilient and safe," despite the bare shelves that people are seeing in supermarkets, and the extraordinary economic shock of the coronavirus pandemic.

"In the United States, we have plenty of food for all of our citizens," Perdue said.

"I want to be clear, the bare store shelves that you may see in some cities in the country are a demand issue, not a supply issue."

On Sunday, Smithfield Foods announced that it was closing its pork processing plant in Sioux Falls until further notice after hundreds of employees tested positive for the coronavirus - a step the head of the company warned could hurt the nation's meat supply.

Other meat processing plants have also closed temporarily because of outbreaks of the coronavirus, including a Tyson Foods facility in Columbus Junction, Iowa, where more than two dozen employees tested positive.

Perdue says there has been a large shift from people eating in restaurants and fast food businesses, and now eating at home, which has spiked in the last few weeks and placed a high demand on grocery stores.

"Our supply chain is sophisticated, efficient, integrated and synchronized, and it's taken us a few days to relocate the misalignment between institutional settings and grocery settings. Perdue said.

For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia.