McDonald's is pulling Quarter Pounders from 20% of all U.S. locations following deadly E. coli outbreak

McDonald's has removed Quarter Pounders from about a fifth of its U.S. locations after a deadly E.Coli outbreak was linked to the popular burger, the company said Wednesday.

Federal authorities said Tuesday that one person had died in Colorado and 49 others had fallen ill in 10 states in the Midwest and West

The country's largest fast-food chain said Wednesday it is confident the outbreak was caused by shattered onions on the Quarter Pounder.

A single, unnamed supplier of the onions no longer supplies vegetables to McDonald's restaurants, the company added.

While ties with beef suppliers were not severed, officials said they could not rule out the possibility that contaminated ground beef was to blame.

Still, McDonald's has removed Quarter Pounders from about 2,700 locations in 12 states, according to an update from the Centers for Disease Control on Wednesday.

The FDA and CDC warned McDonald's late last week about illnesses linked to its food, a spokesman said.

But the first reported McDonald's-related case dates back to Sept. 27 — nearly a month ago — leaving some food safety experts confused about why it took so long to alert the public.

“The flow of information is slower than normal,” food safety expert James Marsden told The Post on Wednesday.

“Normally, recording in reported cases would raise alarm and the (government) would alert the public sooner.”

The CDC interviewed 18 people with confirmed cases and 12 of them said they ate a Quarter Pounder before getting sick, a McDonald's spokesman said.

A CDC spokesperson told The Post: “The Colorado Department of Public Health notified the CDC on 10/10. informed about an increase in E. coli cases in his state and on October 15th. The CDC began investigating after laboratory tests confirmed it was a multistate outbreak and not just a local outbreak in Colorado. Investigators are working as quickly as possible to identify a contaminated ingredient.”

Meanwhile, McDonald's franchisees are bracing for a slump in business – exacerbating the sales decline that has led McDonald's to push value meals this year.

Its shares fell more than 5% on Wednesday.

“This will affect all of us as people are hesitant to visit us,” a franchise operator, who did not want to be identified, told The Post.

A McDonald's spokesman declined to address whether the company's foot traffic was impacted by the outbreak.

McDonald's sells over two million Quarter Pounders a day, the franchisee said, adding that if there were widespread outbreaks “there would be tens of thousands of cases.”

The company is “very, very, very careful” about removing Quarter Pounders from its restaurants, the franchisee added.