California targets critical farm workers for vaccinations

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The fight to end the coronavirus’ devastation throughout California’s heartland extends to the Mexico border, where migrant farm workers heading north to pick lettuce, broccoli, carrots, and other crops are offered vaccination as soon as they enter the United States.

California is vaccinating farm workers on a large scale by taking the shots to where they live and work, protecting a population disproportionately hard hit by the pandemic.

Advocates said an initial slow rollout in California has gained momentum in the past few weeks as the flow of vaccine increases and mobile clinics pop up at farms and food processing centres.

Farm workers are particularly vulnerable because they live in crowded bunkhouses and eat together in dining halls.

Those who toil outdoors often travel to the fields together in packed vans or buses.

Others work in bustling packing warehouses.

At a recent event at the old headquarters of the United Farm Workers in Delano, a festival-like atmosphere featuring DJs and free food drew some 1,000 people from the Central Valley.

On the border in Calexico, where only essential workers have been allowed to cross since March of last year, volunteers with Salud Sin Fronteras, Spanish for Health Without Borders, inoculate arriving workers.

Farther north, Ernestina Solorio, 50, who picks strawberries in the fields of Watsonville each harvest, was first up at a vaccination site in the backyard of a home.

The single mother of four said she lived in fear of getting infected and spent weeks calling clinics about getting a vaccine.

“I kept thinking what will happen to my children if I get sick? Who will cook for them? Who will help them?” she said.

Researchers at Purdue University estimate that about 9,000 agricultural workers in the U.S. have died of COVID-19 and nearly a half-million have been infected.

California was the first state to make agricultural workers eligible for vaccinations, followed by others including Washington, Michigan, and Georgia.

Arizona hasn’t prioritised farm workers but some private growers have offered vaccinations.

In Florida, the nation’s main citrus provider, farm worker advocates there have pushed to no avail to remove a residency requirement and to declare agricultural workers as essential.

California is the nation’s top producer of fruits and vegetables, and its growers rely on the labour of as many as 800,000 farm workers.

Some arrive under the H2A visa programme which allows employers to hire them legally, but many are in the country illegally.

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