Food and agricultural workers advance to virus vaccination list

Food and agricultural workers can now get coronavirus vaccinations in San Bernardino County, officials said Tuesday.

The announcement was made during the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors meeting.

Farmworkers, grocery store workers and those working in the food supply chain join others in phase one of the county’s vaccine rollout. They join health care personnel, long-term care facility residents, county residents 65 and older,

emergency services workers, public and private educators living or working in San Bernardino County and licensed child care providers on the vaccination list.

To make getting those vaccines easier, the county is driving mobile vaccination

clinics to older residents who cannot travel to larger vaccination sites.

Mobile clinics have been offered in Crestline, Lytle Creek, Helendale, Lake Arrowhead, San Bernardino, Chino Hills, Big Bear Lake and Colton, county spokesman David Wert wrote in an email Tuesday.

The mobile clinics also will be visiting Chino, Helendale, Hesperia, Lucerne

Valley, Montclair, Needles, Rancho Cucamonga, Rialto, Trona, Twentynine Palms, Upland, Wrightwood and Yucca Valley in coming weeks.

County officials also are asking residents to sign up at the state’s MyTurn.ca.gov website to receive a notification when it’s their turn to get vaccinated. The county currently uses its own system

but will be transitioning to the state system in the next few weeks.

Supervisor Curt Hagman thanked county staff for working “seven days a week” on the technology behind the effort to get county residents vaccinated.

Also, the county is holding out hope that students can return to in-person education this school year.

Corwin Porter, the county’s director of public health, sees a chance for middle school and high school campuses to reopen. Elementary schools in the county already have been cleared to resume in-person classes. If current trends continue, Porter said, officials expect San Bernardino County to move from the state’s purple to the red tier about March 22.

“Schools can reopen for (grades) 7 to 12, once they hit the red tier” and seven new cases per 100,000 residents or less, Porter said. But he noted that it’s still ultimately a decision for school districts.

The case rate alone isn’t enough, though. California also requires school districts to follow all other safety processes before reopening schools.