Some counties like Riverside have sent mobile clinics to agricultural worksites. Just having something on a website isn’t going to get farmworkers somewhere because there is limited digital literacy and that limitation has been a huge barrier,” she said. “We want to make sure the process is accessible. But success will take more available doses, and also more coordination and ingenuity to ensure that vaccines are where the workers are. United Farm Workers Foundation Executive Director Diana Tellefson Torres said targeting farmworkers at their work sites is the best way to make the vaccine easy for them to get. The clinics are sometimes only open to workers of certain companies, and they are reliant on how many doses a county sets aside for them. Gavin Newsom has visited farmworker vaccine events in the Central Valley, touting the state’s commitment to the workers who feed America and promising them more vaccines.īut workplace vaccination events are still few and far between in California, so farmworkers face many obstacles getting the vaccine, advocates say. “Some (growers) weren’t crazy about getting workers tested or bringing doctors to the fields, but vaccines are different.” “A big part is seeing how much growers really want it,” said Irene de Barraicua with Líderes Campesinas, a nonprofit network of women farm workers based in Oxnard. Large employers like Foster Farms, Pom Wonderful and Terranova Ranch reported about a 90% vaccination rate in recent, on-site worker vaccination clinics, according to the Fresno County public health department. Counties only recently started offering vaccinations to this hard-hit workforce, but agricultural workers are so far accepting the vaccine at high rates. The whole process took less than 30 minutes, including the 15 minutes she sat in observation after her shot.Ĭalifornia has more than half a million farmworkers - and they appear to be eager to be vaccinated. We are continually adding clinics and appointments as vaccine becomes available."įor more information, visit Tulare County's website.The process was easy enough: During a Sunday shift in late February, she walked from her workstation to an outdoor vaccine line. Now it's also important to know is if you have missed getting an appointment or you log into My Turn and they're all taken, you can register to receive a notification of when appointments will open up again. "Get your appointment because they do fill up quickly. "Don't wait to vaccinate," Monteiro said. You can go to MyTurn to schedule an appointment at a county or state site. "However, if we get a large shipment of vaccine, which we have been getting here in Tulare County, we still have our clinic managers and our nurses here with the public health department who can quickly mobilize to get those vaccinations out."Ĭarrie Monteiro says residents should explore all of the vaccination options that are now available: your local pharmacy, healthcare provider, or one of four state vaccination sites in the county, such as the Earlimart Veterans Memorial Building. "That creates more ability for our staff to mobilize on those five days to go out to smaller communities and pop up vaccination sites," Tulare County HHSA's Carrie Monteiro said. "So yeah, I wanted to get it too."īut the venue will continue to host vaccine clinics five days a week through a county partnership with a company called Curative. "Well I got COVID back in December, and then I'm pregnant, and then everyone else in my family already has (the vaccine)," Sanchez said. Inside, Tulare County Public Health staff administered hundreds of doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to eligible residents, including Porterville's Edith Sanchez, who works in child care. (KFSN) - SkyView 30 showed the long line of cars waiting to enter a building at the International Agri-Center in Tulare on Tuesday. County health officials organized Tuesday's mass vaccination event at the Agri-Center in response to a recent spike in vaccine supply.
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