Florida Agricultural Commissioner: "I’ve asked [FL Governor Ron DeSantis] since December to make farmworkers among those eligible next for vaccines, which he refused to do... The lack of empathy and concern for the working people who put food on our tables is appalling.”
John,
As the COVID-19 pandemic enters its second year -- its death toll continuing to rise, claiming the lives of well over half a million mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, friends and cousins -- an end to the national nightmare remains frustratingly just out of sight. With new variants spreading, and many states loosening already-poorly-enforced public health measures, public health experts are beginning to warn of a fourth wave of sickness and death. But in this dismal landscape, one remarkable development provides real cause for hope: Science and industry, working at unprecedented speed, have produced multiple, highly effective vaccines in record time, and states from coast to coast are mobilizing hundreds of thousands of health care workers to get those life-saving vaccines into the arms of as many people as possible. After a year of loss and isolation unlike any other in living memory, we all -- starting with the most vulnerable among us, and with those essential workers who continue to risk their lives so that the rest of us can live ours in safety and comfort -- can finally start to see light at the end of the tunnel.
Yet for some essential workers, that light remains maddeningly dim. Despite clear federal guidelines defining the proper order of priority for distributing the coveted vaccine -- a logical sequencing based on widely-accepted principles of epidemiology and equity -- some states continue to exclude millions of essential workers, principal among them farmworkers, from their vaccination efforts.
In spite of their unique and well-documented vulnerabilities, and despite the disproportionately high toll the pandemic has taken on the 2-3 million workers who plant, cultivate, and harvest our country's fruits and vegetables, hundreds of thousands of farmworkers remain stuck on the sidelines as states like Florida and Georgia hustle to vaccinate their residents. Meanwhile, time for Florida's essential farmworker community is running out. Florida is an agricultural base state, meaning farmworkers live and work here for nine months of the year, and travel from state to state along the East Coast to follow the harvest during the summer months. Given the logistical challenges of administering vaccines -- the majority of which require two shots spaced 3-4 weeks apart -- the time window to vaccinate Florida's farmworkers is now, and that window is closing fast. If workers here don't receive their vaccinations within the next several weeks, the next realistic window of opportunity may not open again until November or December, leaving our state's essential farmworkers unnecessarily exposed to the deadly virus for nearly a full year.
In a matter of weeks, Florida's farmworkers will begin the annual trek north for the summer season, moving from labor camp to labor camp, working long hours and living in remote areas far from accessible clinics, for months on end. The uncertainty and instability of their occupation will render the prospect of vaccination – especially a two-dose vaccine – extremely challenging, if not impossible. Meanwhile, the overcrowded housing and jam-packed labor buses awaiting workers over the coming months will provide the ideal environment for the spread of the now even more contagious coronavirus.
Florida's elected officials face a decision that will literally determine life or death for countless farmworkers in the months ahead.
