Deemed an essential workforce during the pandemic, California’s mostly Latino farmworkers are also underrepresented in the state’s vaccination program, health officials and activists say, prompting the delivery of shots in the fields. Reuters reports that in one such campaign, public health officials vaccinated about 250 workers on Monday 1 February, including about 150 from Hadley’s Date Gardens, in the first of what they hope will be a weekly visit to agricultural lands.
“We’re essential for the country, to be able to feed the other families,” Maria Razo, 45, a date sorter, said from the vaccination site in Mecca, California, about 140 miles (225 km) east of Los Angeles.
“Now that we have it, we’re going to work a little safer,” Razo said after getting her first of two shots of the vaccine developed by Pfizer Inc and German partner BioNTech SE.Read more