Fla. COVID-19 response leaves out farmworkers
Focus on age neglects essential workforce
The sting of the needle dulled the fear of death that compelled Armando Izaguirre to the strip mall vaccination clinic.
“I lost a nephew,” Izaguirre said, “and that’s really scary . ... When you lose somebody close to you, it’s like, uh oh, wake-up call.”
His nephew died of COVID-19 and worked in agriculture, as does Izaguirre.
A month earlier, the 68-year-old farmer had pulled into the same WinnDixie lot in Immokalee, Florida, and, to his shock, found a mass of well-heeled coastal retirees on a vaccination pilgrimage to the small inland town.
But no spot for him. Immokalee is a hub for surrounding fields that produce America’s tomatoes and oranges and is Izaguirre’s lifelong home.
“I’m looking at all these people that I’ve never seen in my life and all these expensive cars out there. Mercedes. I mean, Bentleys. Corvettes, brand-new Corvettes! And I’m like, man, $300,000 cars!” Izaguirre recalled.
The per capita income in Immokalee is $12,000.
The pandemic ignited high infection rates and deaths in this farmworker community last spring and summer.
“This town got slammed,” said Joseph Brister, director of Immokalee’s
“It’s urgent that agricultural workers are vaccinated before they travel to other states.” Lupe Gonzalo of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers
sole funeral home, noting most of the COVID-19 deaths were older men with pre-existing conditions who worked in agriculture.
The death toll and the state’s inadequate and lagging response to the health needs of farmworkers across Florida throughout the pandemic reflect a public health failure that devalued the contributions of workers who were deemed essential, farmworker advocates say.
And that neglect has implications reaching beyond Florida, advocates say.
“It’s urgent that agricultural workers are vaccinated before they travel to other states,” said Lupe Gonzalo of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. “More than anything, there’s a lack of responsibility, and again we’re seeing the same thing: another rather large failure in bringing necessary resources, urgent resources to farmworkers.”
The coalition estimates about 20,000 migrants live in Immokalee during harvest season.
Florida opened vaccines to anyone 18 or older Monday, leaving co-health care providers and nonprofits scrambling to reach thousands of migrant workers who start heading north this month.
Gonzalo welcomed Gov. Ron DeSantis’ “long overdue decision” but called for streamlining the registration process so farmworkers can be vaccinated before harvest season ends.
“The vaccine rollout thus far has been challenging for low-income people without the time or technology required to get appointments. We fear that leaving the onerous registration process unchanged, Florida will continue to endanger its essential workers and hamper its own efforts to control the spread of the virus.”
DeSantis and Latinos
In early March, DeSantis said he was done vaccinating by job, making it clear farmworkers would not be prioritized, despite a federal recommendation to give them early access, despite pleas from growers and advocates, and despite health, living and working conditions that make them more vulnerable.
A University of California, San Francisco study found Latino food and agriculture workers were in the most at-risk category for death during the pandemic.
“Making sure that their health was a top priority, that just has not been on the governor’s radar,” Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried said.
DeSantis attributed the summer surge in cases to “overwhelmingly Hispanic” farmworkers and day laborers and noted “the No. 1 outbreak we’ve seen is in agricultural communities,” according to reporting at the time, though he later clarified he didn’t mean to blame workers.
Fried’s office partnered with the state Division of Emergency Management, the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences and local governments to host farmworker testing events and worked with the institute to launch bilingual vaccine education and create farmworker safety videos.
Fried was unaware of state dollars specifically targeted for farmworkers during the pandemic.
Lack of transparency about plans
State agencies have not been transparent about how farmworkers factored into Florida’s COVID-19 response. The governor’s office, the Department of Health and the Division of Emergency Management have not fulfilled records requests sent in February asking for state plans, coordination efforts and how much the state spent on reaching farmworker and rural populations during the pandemic. Nor did they answer if a plan to serve farmworkers existed.
Florida gave first vaccine priority to residents 65 and older before opening it to those 50 and older and then 40 and older. Many of the state’s farmworkers, who number between 100,000 and 200,000, don’t fall in those age groups.
Researchers estimated that 75% of Florida crop workers have at least one underlying health condition that puts them at risk of developing COVID-19 complications.
Several Florida towns with farmworker populations have been disproportionately impacted with infection rates higher than the state average and up to three times more than nearby wealthier communities of retirees, according to a March analysis of state data.
An estimated 19,000 Florida agriculture workers have tested positive for the coronavirus, according to Purdue University’s Food and Agriculture Vulnerability Index. At least 9,000 workers across the country have died from it, a researcher estimated.
The governor’s age restrictions have pained providers well aware of the high risks for farmworkers and with missions to serve the most vulnerable. Healthcare Network, a federally qualified health center, had been unable to distribute vaccines to anyone younger than 50 per state guidelines.
“It’s extremely frustrating,” said Dr. Emily Ptaszek, CEO of Immokaleebased Healthcare Network, before the state announced dropping the age limits. “Frustrating is not even an appropriate word. It feels terrible for a team of community health advocates to not be able to take care of people the way we know we can.”
The median age in Immokalee is 29. Also worrisome is the clock. “There is a pressing need to inoculate our already hard-to-reach migrant farmworkers,” Ptaszek said. “The state’s expanded eligibility will provide us latitude to reach this unique group.”
Workers start migrating in April and are gone by June, she added. “Then another community has to deal with this issue.”
Florida’s $147 billion agriculture industry is the state’s second-largest industry after tourism, according to state officials. Growers had also petitioned the governor for vaccine priority for workers, citing their “vital” role in providing a “safe and abundant food supply.”
“The health and well-being of the agriculture workforce is the top priority for Florida growers, who have taken extraordinary measures, completed extensive training and made substantial investments in workforce protection against COVID-19,” Aaron Troyer, chair of the Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association, wrote to DeSantis in December.
Consumers “have to worry about” farmworkers, said Luis Peña-Lévano, an assistant professor of agribusiness and resource economics at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore.
Increased costs of labor and measures to protect workers can trickle down to the buyer, he said, and higher food prices might be yet to come. “It will take some time to see.”