‘We have failed’: How COVID-19 affects California’s 800,000 farmworkers
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Against the backdrop of a global health crisis and a summer of unprecedented wildfires, California’s 800,000 farmworkers continue to sustain the state’s annual $50-billion agricultural industry in order to make a living and provide for their loved ones.
They are an essential workforce, putting food on Californians’ tables, who can’t work remotely or socially distance.
It comes at a cost.
A new study released by the Clinica de Salud del Valle de Salinas and the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health underscores the COVID-19 pandemic’s unequal toll on agricultural workers in California. The majority of participants in the study, conducted between July and November, were from Mexico and identified as Latino.
“We have failed to protect this population, while they have continued to engage in essential work through the pandemic,” said Joseph Lewnard, a researcher and assistant professor of epidemiology at the school, in a statement.
Blood samples taken from farmworkers surveyed for the study found that nearly one in five tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies, meaning they contracted the virus earlier.
About a quarter of farmworkers surveyed said they had a loved one contract the virus, and 7% said they knew a loved one who died from the disease.
A third of farmworkers said they feared losing their job if they came down with the illness, according to the study.
Yet, farmworkers were split about getting a COVID-19 vaccination.
A combined 31% of farmworkers said they were either unsure, unlikely or very unlikely to get the vaccine. Some of those reasons included a fear of the vaccine causing bad side effects, a mistrust in government and worry that the vaccine would make them contract the virus.
Dr. Maximiliano Cuevas, chief executive officer of the Clinica de Salud del Valle de Salinas, said it’s critical to understand the level of disease among farmworkers in order for lawmakers to develop policies to stem the spread of the virus and protect the nation’s food supply.
Assemblyman Robert Rivas, D-Hollister, represents Salinas Valley, a region that contains about 50,000 agricultural workers and dubbed as the “Salad Bowl of the Nation.”
Rivas, a descendant of Mexican agricultural laborers who grew up in farmworker housing in California, understands how their work and cramped living conditions could make it difficult to stem the spread of the virus.
COVID-19 “transmission may be exacerbated in farmworker communities due to poor housing quality and mixed-generation overcrowding with unrelated household members,” according to the study. About 37% of farmworkers said they lived in overcrowded housing.
It’s why Rivas is advocating for farmworkers to receive vaccine prioritization.
“These disparities are only going to grow and grow and grow more pronounced amongst Latinos in California, amongst farmworkers,” he said. “There is a general hesitancy to get this vaccination once it becomes available, and so certainly breaking down those barriers amongst farmworkers (or agricultural workers) is going to be really important.”
This story was originally published December 10, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "‘We have failed’: How COVID-19 affects California’s 800,000 farmworkers."