WATSONVILLE — It’s been a difficult year for Francisco Naranjo, a Watsonville resident and 40-year career farmworker.
Last fall, during the raspberry season, a crew member in his cohort got sick with COVID-19. According to Naranjo, the grower laid him and the rest of the crew off for two weeks without pay, as a result. Then, Naranjo’s right shoulder started to hurt and his doctor told him he wasn’t in a condition to work, so he’s been on disability for four months.
Still, Naranjo said he wants to get back in the fields, to be protected from COVID-19 – and that means getting vaccinated.
“I’m concerned about the side effects on my body from the vaccine, but I would still take it,” Naranjo said through a translator.
At this point, Naranjo said he hasn’t been contacted by the county or community-based organizations about the vaccine.
“If I see a lot of other farmworkers and people like me taking the vaccine, that’s an encouragement to take it, although it’s scary,” Naranjo said.
The majority of farmworkers remain unvaccinated, as health care providers struggle to inoculate those aged 65 and up across Santa Cruz County. Pop-up clinics could fill some of that gap, though. Wednesday marked the first local mass COVID-19 vaccination clinic aimed at inoculating Santa Cruz County agricultural workers, in Watsonville.
Thomas Am Rhein, the co-chair of the Santa Cruz County Farm Bureau’s COVID task force, echoed Naranjo’s sentiment during Wednesday’s vaccination clinic in Watsonville — put on by Dignity Health Dominican Hospital, the Farm Bureau, and the California Strawberry Commission.
“Many of the people who work through the winter are key people, crew leaders…if we could get some of those people through a vaccine program — as the harvest folks and larger crews come in in a few weeks — they’ll set an example that this is a good thing,” Am Rhein said.
The clinic vaccinated 486 local agricultural workers Wednesday, that includes harvesters, greenhouse workers, poultry industry employees as well as grain and fiber production workers. It aims to vaccinate 500 additional agricultural workers this coming Friday. The second round of shots, required for the vaccination to be effective, will take place in approximately three weeks.
But vaccine doses are still tight and some community members’, such as Naranjo, concerned about vaccine effects. Any campaign’s success will largely depend on successful outreach and education, an easy-to-access signup process as well as centrally located mass vaccination sites, advocates and officials say. Further complicating efforts is that this time of year many growers are in their slow season and fewer workers are on the ground.
Wednesday’s clinic simply required agricultural workers full name and date of birth, according to Paul Angelo, disaster coordinator with Dominican Hospital.
Making the vaccination process as anxiety-free as possible will be key, Santa Cruz County Agricultural Commissioner Juan Hidalgo said.
“We need to make sure that people understand that the vaccine is available to anyone, regardless of their migratory status,” Hidalgo said. That is going to be absolutely essential, that people understand that, and that message gets across.”
Hidalgo’s agency estimates at peak season, around June, there are 9,000 farmworkers on the ground. But as many local fields sit idle now, that staffing number is currently much lower.
That presents a double-edge sword, Hidalgo said: on one hand, since there are fewer farmworkers in the fields, with current limited quantities of vaccine, Hidalgo said it won’t be as challenging to vaccinate those actively in jobs.
At the same time, Hidalgo and advocates say, many farmworkers are currently unemployed, but still living in Santa Cruz and the Monterey Bay area, waiting for work to start up. It’s a challenge to reach out to farmworkers who aren’t in the fields now, Hidalgo said. And many of those community members are undocumented, with the Center for Farmworker families estimating up to 83% of local farmworkers have an unauthorized immigration status.
Taking the Burden of COVID-19
At-large, the Pajaro Valley community has been hit exceptionally hard by coronavirus. More than 54% of all documented cases of COVID-19 in Santa Cruz County have been within the Latino community – which only accounts for 33% of the county’s total population.
A similar disparity can be seen in the geographic data – 60% of all COVID-19 cases have clustered in South Santa Cruz County, while only 29% of the total population reside.
“If we’re really serious about curbing case count in Santa Cruz County, we need to begin to tackle the hot spot and the hot spots has continuously been the Pajaro valley,” Erica Padilla-Chavez, CEO of Pajaro Valley Prevention and Student Assistance told the Sentinel.
“We’ve got 11 months of data to show that. We’ve got 11 months of data to show that death rate, has been here. Contagion has been here,” Padilla-Chavez said.
Padilla-Chavez is heartened by Wednesday’s clinic, and said that model must be scaled up. The nonprofit leader wants to see coordinated messaging, and vaccination campaign efforts across agencies and community organizations.
Efforts to date
Nonprofits including Community Action Board of Santa Cruz County, Pajaro Valley Prevention and Student Assistance, and Center for Farmworker Families, as well as clinics such as Salud Para la Gente have been doing coronavirus outreach to Santa Cruz County’s farmworker population, and at-large the region’s Latino community. The South County COVID Support & Triage Group, which includes many of these organizations, gathers every week to assess the COVID-19 pandemic response in the region.
Since mid-January, Hidalgo, the county agricultural commissioner, has been convening weekly meetings with stakeholders, the Farm Bureau, and other organizations on how to best approach vaccinating agricultural workers. The County COVID-19 Ag Liaison, Socorro Gutierrez, has been attending those meetings.
“In terms of concrete efforts, we are in the planning phases,” Gutierrez said.
Fluctuating state guidance on vaccination prioritization, and shifting vaccine supplies has meant challenges in inoculating farmworkers, Gutierrez said.
“Vaccine availability is very fluid. And it’s definitely outside of our local control. So it all depends on availability of vaccine,” Gutierrez said.
At this point, there’s been no coordinated campaign launched to educate, recruit and vaccinate local farmworkers. That’s largely a function of scarcity of vaccines, according to the county. And the fact that California Department of Public Health guidelines means that Santa Cruz County is still following and fulfilling vaccinations in an age-ordered based system, rather than occupation-based prioritization.
The County Public Health Division is still finishing vaccinating the 75 and older age group, and next will begin vaccinating the 65 and older population. Last month, State Epidemiologist, Dr. Erica Pan, estimated that it could take up until June for that 65 age group to be vaccinated.
“There’s not enough vaccine to meet demand right now. We’re getting tons of occupational-based interest, but we’re going to be in the 65-plus group for a while,” Jason Hoppin, county communications manager, said.
If a farmworker is in a current age-criteria vaccination group, their occupational status may boost their chances of getting a vaccine, according to Hoppin.
While the county public health division is leading vaccination efforts for farmworkers – in part because many in that community don’t have health insurance – other organizations and medical providers, such as Dignity Health–Dominican Hospital are involved in the effort, too.
“One of our missions is to support the community and that’s what we’ve been doing, but if our vaccine availability changes then some of that might change… we’re just not sure, what the future is going to look like,” Paul Angelo with Dominican Hospital said.
According to the county, the best chance farmworkers who are not age-eligible currently have at being vaccinated for COVID-19 is through pop-up mass vaccination sites, such as the one Dignity Health — Dominican Hospital and the Farm Bureau hosted Wednesday.
Still, those pop-up sites are inconsistent, and happen quickly, so workers must be ready to get the call. This week’s site was set up in a matter of days, and growers directly contacted workers through the phone to get sign-ups.
Barriers to access
Even when appointments open up to Santa Cruz County’s agricultural workers, many vaccinations are currently scheduled through health care providers’ websites, or on online portals.
MariaElena de la Garza, executive director of Community Action Board of Santa Cruz, worries about that. Those vulnerable communities, she said, often don’t have access to the internet.
“All of our systems are going online, with meetings and submitting applications online, and we have segments of our community that don’t have access. There’s just barriers that exist for people to access the support,” de la Garza said.
Beyond digital-access challenges, language barriers exist. Many indigenous farmworker families in Santa Cruz County speak Mixteco, which is an oral language, not communicated through the written word, or Triqui, an indigenous language spoken by the Trique people of Mexico. De la Garza and others want to see outreach efforts and resources put toward reaching those indigenous communities.
“Collectively, we do not have a system to reach out to a grandmother who speaks Mixteco, who takes care of her kids’ children… we don’t have a system that is readily accessible, that can touch necessarily that abuelita — that grandma — with the information she needs to ensure she gets the vaccine,” de la Garza said.
Many farmworkers are forced to live in multigenerational homes, as a result of lower-than-average wages, and the high cost of living on the Central Coast. Those living situations also present a higher risk for virus transmission.
Trust, established through outreach and education, will be paramount in the success of vaccinating farmworkers, their families, and at-large the Latino community of south county, de la Garza said. In order to do that, boots-on-the ground and when possible, safe, in-person efforts, involving county agencies, nonprofits, food banks and churches, will be crucial, de la Garza said.
“We’ve learned in this pandemic is that our agricultural community is essential. They work every day to ensure that we have food on our table,” de la Garza said.
But even with the societal reckoning that farmworkers are crucial, Naranjo, who’s 62, is just fighting to get back to work and feel safe doing his job.
“The word ‘essential’ is a very nice word, but it’s not the reality in the fields,” Naranjo said, through the translator.
He’s still not sure when his turn will come for the COVID-19 vaccine.
“Not enough has been done for farmworkers,” Naranjo said. “The work we do, we deserve it.”
