California farmworkers feed us. They deserve priority access to the COVID-19 vaccine

On December 20, the federal Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voted to recommend that state and local health authorities prioritize farm workers for COVID-19 vaccinations under the 1B phase for vaccine distribution, which would put field laborers high on the preference list. Right now, county health department officers are making final decisions for their jurisdictions. As they do so, officials must ensure farm workers remain at the top of the list of those who will get the next batch of novel coronavirus vaccines. Yet reactions from some local officials are concerning.

Eric Sergienko, public health officer for Mariposa County in the Central Valley, doesn’t think vaccinating agricultural workers first makes sense. They should wait because two shots must be administered within 21 and 28 days apart and field workers are largely transient; they often move around from job to job and place to place. “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good” in setting goals, he reasons.

The public health director of Riverside County, Kim Saruwatari, doesn’t share his colleague’s negative view, but recognizes the challenges in covering field workers.

“So we know that once you take it out of the deep freeze, it’s good for five days,” she told KQED. “So, take a smaller amount, take it out to those farm working communities, administer everything we have, get more and take it out and keep going until we get everybody covered.”

Farm workers’ mobility doesn’t mean they can escape the perils of the virus. They regularly live in overcrowded, substandard and unsanitary conditions, usually in multifamily households. They carpool to work packed into cars and other vehicles out of necessity and as a result of how poorly they are paid. Workers frequently toil shoulder to shoulder in fields or packinghouses. Even when social distancing is observed at workplaces, agricultural workers often can’t avoid sharing close spaces.

It would be incredibly irresponsible not to make farm workers a top priority for vaccination. No excuse is good enough to explain leaving them out of the next phase of vaccine distribution.

Not only should local health departments prioritize field workers in their vaccine distribution plans regardless of their location, officials must provide them with access to factual, scientific information about vaccines in the languages they speak. They should also address insecurities and skepticism by farm workers — half of whom are undocumented — over vaccine costs, side effects and disclosure of their personal information.

Even before COVID-19 struck, farm workers were already among the most vulnerable employees in America. They harvest the food that sustains us all yet remain among the lowest paid, most exploited laborers. As the nation went into lock down and many Americans sheltered and were able to work at home, farm workers — officially classified as essential by federal, state and local governments — continued showing up at their jobs. Now, due to multiple effects from the pandemic, farm workers who are overwhelmingly Latino are being disproportionately devastated by COVID-19, with alarming and growing numbers of infections and deaths.

Among our top priorities in response to the pandemic at the UFW Foundation are providing vital information, food and economic assistance to farm working communities. UFW Foundation has thus far distributed more than $17 million to more than 33,000 farm workers and other poor immigrants, mostly in California. In addition, more than 50,000 food boxes, 189,000 fresh restaurant-prepared meals and 800,000 masks have been supplied in rural communities.

How many times must farm workers prove themselves worthy? Can you imagine not being provided a lifesaving vaccine simply because you live in a rural community, or because your work requires you to move around?

The threats farm working communities face from COVID-19 are getting worse, but it doesn’t have to be this way. Choosing not to provide vaccines to vulnerable farm workers because county officials may face logistical challenges is unacceptable.

For more than nine months, field workers have risked their lives to put food on all of our dinner tables. If we don’t protect them with a vaccine now, thousands more will fall ill and more will die.