COACHELLA, California – The sun-baked desert valley 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 resorts where well-groomed snowbirds go to golf and sunbathe and party. But just outside the turquoise pools of Palm Springs, more than 10,000 farm workers harvest the country’s largest crops of date palms, vegetables and fruits.
The mostly undocumented immigrants bore the brunt of the coronavirus pandemic in California: in some areas, up to 40 percent of the workers tested for the virus had positive results. Ds. Francisco Gómez at the Church of Our Lady of Soledad in Coachella said his congregation attended an average of ten funerals a week. “You’re talking about an apocalyptic situation,” he said.
Ending the virus’ hooliganism through farming was one of the biggest challenges in the country. Undocumented immigrants are notorious for registering for government programs or flocking to public vaccination sites, and the idea of offering the Covid-19 vaccine to immigrants who are illegal in the country to other Americans has sparked debate among some Republican lawmakers. encouraged.
But an important effort is underway in the Coachella Valley to bring the vaccine directly into the countries. Thousands of farm workers are being drawn into pop-up vaccination clinics offered by producers and run by the provincial health department.
Riverside County is the first in the country to give large-scale preference to farm workers for vaccination, regardless of their age and health conditions. According to epidemiologists, such programs will have to expand significantly to have the chance to end one of the biggest threats to the stability of the food supply in the country.
Hundreds of coronavirus outbreaks have crippled the workforce on farms and in food processing centers across the country. Researchers at Purdue University estimate that about 500,000 agricultural workers tested positive for the virus and that at least 9,000 died from it.
In the Coachella Valley, the vaccination program, which began in January, culminates in a month-long effort to educate farm workers about Covid-19, which brings testing close to their workplaces and encourages them to stay home if they catch the virus. .
During interruptions of the stinging spring, the harvesting of artichokes and the pruning of vineyards, the workers sneaked into an outdoor warehouse this past morning to receive the first dose of Pfizer vaccine.
They are the frustrating online registration process that most Californians have to navigate, spare, and the hour-long wait that was typical on massive vaccination sites. After agreeing to be vaccinated, an employer or organizer planned their appointments. Then they just have to show up.
Rosa Torres, who packs dates, said she never thought it would be that simple. “God answered my prayers,” she said. Torres, 49, an immigrant from Mexico, said to celebrate the occasion, wearing a matching lime green shirt, wool hat and mask.
As a single mom, she said she could not afford to get sick and miss work.
“Once we were notified that vaccines would be available, we devised plans,” said Janell Percy, executive director of Growing Coachella Valley, a farmers’ group working with the Department of Health. Mrs. Percy spends wild days juggling calls between the country about the availability of vaccines and producers informing her of the number of vaccines needed to cover their crew.
On a recent morning, she thought all 350 vaccines had been filled for the next day, only to hear from a producer that he had nine extra shots from his allotment.
“I have to find a producer who wants it so they don’t waste it,” she said. Percy said when she updated the page where she keeps track of the distribution with a pencil and an eraser.
The challenges of getting farm workers vaccinated far outweigh concerns about their immigration status. The chances of you being able to sign up online for a vaccine are low in a population that often does not have broadband access and faces language barriers. Many people cannot easily reach vaccination sites in urban areas because they do not have reliable transportation or the ability to leave work mid-day.
“Farm workers live in a reality that is strange to most of us, and invisible to most of us, but they produce billions of dollars in food distributed throughout the United States,” said Conrado Bárzaga, CEO of the Desert Healthcare District, said. .
In March 2020, the federal government designated farm workers as essential – a status that enabled them to continue working under housekeeping, but they also had a greater risk of getting the virus.
Policymakers have struggled to protect it. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised giving agricultural workers early access to the vaccine, but states followed different approaches.
Most have not yet started vaccinating agricultural workers, although many have identified them as a priority population. Most people aged 65 or older enjoyed priority, and the average age of farm workers was 39, with more than half under 44.
In California, several counties are hoping in March to expand admission to the entire agricultural workforce. Colorado, Idaho, Michigan and Wisconsin are one of the states that have said they plan to vaccinate farm workers in the coming weeks.
But other states have taken steps to discourage workers from coming forward.
In Florida, a citrus power station, people have to prove their whereabouts to get a vaccine, a requirement that deters unauthorized immigrants. Some pharmacies in Georgia, where people over the age of 65 are currently eligible for vaccinations, have turned down immigrants who cannot show a social security number. In Nebraska, where immigrants are the backbone of the large meat packaging industry, people without legal status will be vaccinated last, officials said.
In Riverside County, advocates and growers of farm workers from across the country have called for the vaccination effort, which is seen as a model for administering vaccines to this population.
“It’s not just that they put farm workers first; they have developed a comprehensive, innovative strategy to ensure access and acceptance of vaccines in farm worker communities,” said Alexis Guild, director of health policy at Farmworker Justice, a national advocacy organization. .
Government Gavin Newsom, after a visit to a Coachella pop-up site on February 17, announced that California will make 34,000 vaccines available to farm workers in the Central Valley, the state’s agricultural heartland. “What this country has done, no other country in the state has done,” he said. “We need to repeat this program up and down the state of California.”
But some in Riverside County, stretching from the working class in Los Angeles to Lake Salton, have questioned whether farm workers should be at the front of the queue.
On a recent evening in Beaumont, about a 30-minute drive from the Coachella Valley, people who had vaccination appointments through the process made available to most California residents – mostly over 65 – hours in their cars on the parking lot of a local middle school.
David Huetten, 73, said those confined to wheelchairs in his retirement community were unable to achieve vaccinations like this. “If you have seniors and teachers who have not been vaccinated, I will not put farm workers at the top of the list,” he said.
In the nearby town of Banning, Olga Rausch, a 73-year-old retired waitress who has not yet been able to sign up for a vaccine, asked why farm workers should go before other blue-collar workers who also cannot afford to go home. do not stay. work. “There are a lot of people living in stressful circumstances,” she said. “Why don’t busboys, dishwashers and people who work at the 99-cent store get the vaccine?”
However, most people felt that it made sense to prioritize farm workers. “They handle our food,” said Don Tandy, a 66-year-old Vietnam veteran.
Health officials are struggling everywhere over the fair distribution of vaccines. President Biden has repeatedly said that administering the vaccine is at the heart of his coronavirus response, but early data show that doses were slower to reach some black and Latino communities with an increased risk of infection.
In Riverside County, Hispanics represent nearly half of the population, but so far they have received only 20 percent of the doses. Vaccinating farm workers is a first step in addressing the stock problem, said U.S. Representative Raul Ruiz, a doctor who grew up in Riverside County.
“We have a moral responsibility to ensure that we do not leave people behind simply because they do not have the resources or live in certain postal codes,” he said. Ruiz, a Democrat, said he has visited rural communities to encourage residents to be vaccinated.
It was not easy.
Like many Americans, some farm workers are concerned that the vaccine is not safe because disinformation has increased on social media. Others are afraid that they may be vaccinated as a result of immigration.
Prime Time International, the country’s largest producer of peppers, last month invited workers to register for the vaccine, and ‘the first question was:’ Is immigration there? ‘”, Garrett Cardilino, director of field operations of the company, recalled..
To alleviate those fears, Riverside County called on grassroots organizations to reach out to farm workers and reassure them.
‘There is no chip to track you; there is no negative effect; you do not lose your fertility, ”said Montserrat Gomez, an educator at TODEC, a legal aid organization that serves immigrants, to a group of about 30 workers in masks gathered by a spinach field in the city of Winchester.
“The vaccine is available now,” she said. “Many people wish they had the opportunity.”
When asked if they know anyone affected by the virus, most workers raise their hands. Several knew someone who had died.
Rose Perez, a 36-year-old worker at Full Farms, a vegetable farm in the town of Hemet, said she remained suspicious of the vaccine, even though her sister became seriously ill with the coronavirus. “I read that nurses died after taking the vaccine,” she said. “No one in my family takes it.”
Domingo Juan, a Guatemalan, also said he did not trust the vaccine: ‘This disease has been around for a long time. Suddenly there is a cure? ‘
But after the conversation, several workers returned to the fields to harvest bok choy and said they were ready to report.
Among them was Luis Valdivia (48), who recently recovered from the virus but had to go unpaid during his illness. “I suffered too much, lost 37 pounds,” he said. Valdivia said. His voice is still hoarse after weeks of intense coughing. ‘I will take the vaccine; so I will be able to keep working. ”
America, Aguilera, 46, said in two lines that she could not remember that immigrants without documents received preferential treatment in her 21 years in the United States. “With all due respect,” she said, “it’s time we got the chance to be first at something.”