The New York Times
Thousands of farmers are prioritized for coronavirus vaccine
COACHELLA, California – The sunny desert valley hidden behind the San Jacinto mountains is best known for an annual music festival that attracts 100,000 fans a day and a series of lush oasis resort towns where well-heeled snowbirds will play golf and sunbathe and party. But just beyond the turquoise pools of Palm Springs, more than 10,000 farm workers harvest some of the largest crops of date palms, vegetables and fruits in the country. Mostly immigrants in the country illegally, they endured the impact of the coronavirus pandemic in California: in some areas, up to 40% of workers tested for the virus have had positive results. Reverend Francisco Gómez of the Nossa Senhora de Soledad church in Coachella said that his parish had been carrying out an average of 10 burials a week. “You are talking about an apocalyptic situation,” he said. Ending the uproar of the virus on the farms has been one of the country’s biggest challenges. Immigrants in the country illegally are afraid to register for government programs or migrate to public vaccination sites, and the idea of offering the COVID-19 vaccine to immigrants who are illegally in the country in front of other Americans has sparked debate among some Republican members of the Congress. Subscribe to the New York Times newsletter The Morning. But a historic effort is underway in Coachella Valley to take the vaccine directly to the fields. Thousands of rural workers are being pulled into vaccination clinics hosted by producers and administered by the Department of Health. The municipality is the first in the country to prioritize rural workers for vaccination, regardless of their age and health conditions, on a large scale. But public health researchers say these programs will need to expand significantly to have any chance of ending one of the biggest threats to the country’s food supply stability. Hundreds of coronavirus outbreaks have damaged the workforce on farms and food processing centers across the country. Researchers at Purdue University estimate that about 500,000 agricultural workers have tested positive for the virus and at least 9,000 have died from it. In Coachella Valley, the vaccination program, which started in January, is the culmination of a month-long effort to educate farmers about COVID-19, bringing the tests close to their workplaces and encouraging them to stay in home if they get the virus. At intervals of piling onions, harvesting artichokes and pruning vines, workers on a recent morning went to an open-air warehouse to receive the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine. They were spared the frustrating online registration process that most Californians need to navigate and the hours waits that were typical in mass vaccination sites. As soon as they agreed to be immunized, an employer or organizer scheduled their appointments. So, all they had to do was show up. Rosa Torres, who packs dates, said she never imagined it could be so simple. “God answered my prayers,” said Torres, 49, an immigrant from Mexico, who was resplendent in his lime green shirt, wool cap and mask to mark the occasion. Single mother, she said she had no money to get sick and miss work. “As soon as we learned that vaccines would be available, we were making plans,” said Janell Percy, executive director of the Growing Coachella Valley, a group of farmers who are working with the Department of Health. Percy spends frantic days juggling connections between the county. about the availability of the vaccine and the producers who inform it about the number of vaccines needed to cover their crews. On a recent morning, she thought that all 350 vaccine vacancies for the next day had been filled, only to hear from a producer that he had nine extra injections of his quota. “I have to find a farmer who wants this so that it doesn’t go to waste,” said Percy as he updated the sheet with accompanying distributions with a pencil and an eraser. The challenges to vaccinate rural workers go far beyond concerns about their immigration status. The chances of signing up for an online vaccine are low in a population that generally does not have access to broadband and faces language barriers. Many cannot easily get to vaccination sites in urban areas because they lack reliable transport or cannot leave work in the middle of the day. “Farmers are living in a reality that is foreign to most of us, and they are invisible to most of us, but they produce billions of dollars in food distributed in the United States,” said Conrado Bárzaga, chief executive of Desert Healthcare District. In March 2020, the federal government designated farm workers as essential – a status that allowed them to continue working under the order to stay at home, but also placed them at high risk of catching the virus. Lawmakers have struggled to know how to protect them. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised giving farm workers early access to the vaccine, but states have adopted a number of approaches. Most have not yet started vaccinating farm workers, although many have identified them as a priority population. Most prioritized people aged 65 and over, and the average age of agricultural workers is 39, with more than half under 44. In California, several counties hope in March to expand eligibility for the entire agricultural workforce. Colorado, Idaho, Michigan and Wisconsin are among the states that have declared that they intend to start vaccinating farmers in the coming weeks. But other states have taken steps that may discourage workers from presenting themselves. In Florida, a citrus potency, people need proof of residence to get the vaccine, a requirement that tends to deter unauthorized immigrants. Some pharmacies in Georgia, where people over 65 are currently eligible for vaccines, have refused immigrants who were unable to show a Social Security number. In Nebraska, where immigrants are the backbone of the big meatpacking industry, people without legal status will be vaccinated last, officials said. In Riverside County, defenders of farm workers and producers have been receiving calls from across the country about the vaccination effort, which is considered a model for how to administer vaccines to this population. “It’s not just about prioritizing rural workers – they’ve developed a comprehensive and innovative strategy to ensure access and acceptance of the vaccine in rural worker communities,” said Alexis Guild, director of health policy for the Agricultural Workers Justice, a national defense organization. Governor Gavin Newsom, after visiting a Coachella pop-up website on February 17, announced that California would make 34,000 vaccines available to rural workers in the Central Valley, the state’s agricultural heartland. “What this county did, no other county in the state did,” he said. “We need to replicate this program across the state of California.” But some in Riverside County, which stretches from the working-class suburbs of Los Angeles to the Salton Sea, questioned whether farmers should be at the front of the line. On a recent night in Beaumont, about a 30-minute drive from Coachella Valley, people who had managed to schedule vaccinations through the process available to most California residents – mostly over 65 – stayed in their cars for hours. in the parking lot of a local high school. David Huetten, 73, said those confined to wheelchairs in his retirement community were unable to participate in vaccination events like this. “When you have elderly people and teachers who have not been vaccinated, I would not put rural workers at the top of the list,” he said. In the neighboring town of Banning, Olga Rausch, a 73-year-old retired waitress who had yet to sign up for a vaccine, questioned why rural workers should go before other men who cannot afford to stay at home. to work. “There are many people living in overcrowded conditions,” she said. “Why aren’t waiters, dishwashers and people working at the 99 cent store not getting the vaccine?” Most people, however, thought it made sense to prioritize rural workers. “They are handling our food,” said Don Tandy, a 66-year-old Vietnam veteran. Health officials everywhere are struggling to achieve an equitable distribution of vaccines. President Joe Biden has repeatedly said that administering the vaccine is critical to his response to the coronavirus, but early data show that doses have been slower to reach some black and Latin communities at high risk of infection. In Riverside County, Hispanics make up almost half of the population, but so far they have only received 20% of the doses. Vaccination of farm workers is a first step towards solving the equity problem, said Congressman Raul Ruiz, a doctor who grew up in Riverside County. “We have a moral responsibility to make sure we don’t leave people behind simply because they don’t have the resources or live in certain postal codes,” said Ruiz, a Democrat, who has visited rural communities to encourage residents to get vaccinated. It has not been easy. Like many Americans, some rural workers fear the vaccine is not safe, because misinformation has proliferated on social media. Others fear that vaccination could expose them to immigration enforcement. Prime Time International, the country’s largest pepper producer, invited workers to register for the vaccine in January, and “the first question was, ‘Will there be immigration?’”, Recalled Garrett Cardilino, the company’s director of field operations. To allay these fears, Riverside County enlisted grassroots organizations to reach out to rural workers and reassure them. “There is no chip to track it; there is no negative effect; you don’t lose your fertility, ”said Montserrat Gomez, a TODEC educator, a non-profit legal aid organization that serves immigrants, to a group of about 30 masked workers gathered in a spinach field in the city of Winchester. “The vaccine is now available to you,” she said. “Many people would like to have this opportunity.” Asked whether they knew someone who had been infected with the virus, most workers raised their hands. Several knew someone who had died. Rose Perez, a 36-year-old worker at Full Farms, a vegetable farm in the city of Hemet, said she remains suspicious of the vaccine, even though her sister has become seriously ill with the coronavirus. “I read that nurses died after getting the vaccine,” she said. “Nobody in my family is taking it.” Domingo Juan, a Guatemalan, also said he did not trust the vaccine: “This disease has been around for a long time. Suddenly, is there a cure? ”But after the lecture, several workers returned to the fields to harvest bok choy and said they were ready to apply. Among them was Luis Valdivia, 48, who recently recovered from the virus, but had to go unpaid during his illness. “I suffered a lot, I lost 37 pounds,” said Valdivia, his voice still hoarse after weeks of intense coughing. “I am going to get the vaccine; so I can continue working. “Two fights later, America Aguilera, 46, said he did not remember immigrants in the country illegally receiving preferential treatment for nothing in his 21 years in the United States. “With all due respect,” she said, “it was time for us to have the opportunity to be first in something.” This article was originally published in The New York Times. © 2021 The New York Times Company