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Farmworkers, food processors a focus for COVID-19 vaccination
Goal is to prevent
a repeat of the
outbreaks of 2020
By JADE MCDOWELL
East Oregonian
A
fter the Oregon Health
Authority
(OHA)
announced in May
2020 that the agency
would start publishing weekly
lists of workplace outbreaks of
COVID-19, it became clear that
agricultural workers were at high
risk for catching the virus on the
job. A majority of the outbreaks
on the early lists were made up of
food processing plants, farms and
trucking companies.
Now, in the spring of 2021,
Eastern Oregon counties with
large agricultural bases are work-
ing hard to prevent a repeat of last
summer by getting workers up and
down the agricultural supply chain
vaccinated as quickly as possible.
In Morrow County, County
Commissioner Melissa Lind-
say said she fears farmworkers
became eligible in Oregon about
two weeks too late to prevent out-
breaks during the spring planting
season. But once the county was
given approval to start vaccinat-
ing farmworkers and those in food
processing, it worked hard to make
up for lost time.
Two days after getting approval
to open vaccination to agricultural
workers on March 22, the county
partnered with the OHA in a pilot
project that included hosting a
four-day drive-thru vaccine clinic
with available times ranging from
7 a.m. to 8 p.m. to try to accom-
modate as many work schedules
as possible. No appointments were
necessary.
“It’s gone very smoothly, and
we’re very pleased with OHA’s
assistance,” Lindsay said.
She said she pushed the state
to provide the one-dose John-
son & Johnson vaccine so that
workers didn’t have to be worried
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian
Jorge Tapia Madrigal looks away as he receives his first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine at a mass vaccination site
for farmworkers at the Sage Center in Boardman on Wednesday, March 24, 2021.
about missing work to get vacci-
nated twice or deal with possible
post-vaccine symptoms a second
time.
The county also created a
sign-up at the beginning of the
year for all residents interested in
getting a call letting them know
when they become eligible. Lind-
say said that list has been helpful
for outreach. She also said Mor-
row County has been trying to get
large workplaces to let them come
in and administer vaccines on site,
but has had less willingness on
that than she had hoped.
In
neighboring
Umatilla
County, Health Director Joe Fiu-
mara also said that the county has
not had a “great acceptance rate”
so far from employers letting the
county bring vaccines directly to
their employees.
“We’re trying to bring (the vac-
cine) to the worksite to reduce
some of the barriers,” he said.
“We’re hearing it don’t work for a
lot of people to take time off work
to go to a vaccine clinic and maybe
lose two hours of pay.”
However, Fiumara said he has
been pleasantly surprised by how
many farmworkers have said they
don’t need the vaccine because
they already got it. Some had
scheduled an appointment through
Mirasol Family Health Center in
Hermiston, which was allowed
to start vaccinating farmwork-
ers early under a separate fed-
eral program, while others quali-
fied through other means such as
through Veterans Affairs, the Con-
federated Tribes of the Umatilla
Indian Reservation or by traveling
out of state.
In most of those cases, Fiu-
mara said vaccinations are reported
directly to the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, without
being reported to the county. So
Umatilla County Public Health isn’t
completely sure what the true vac-
cination rate is among residents.
“I don’t think we’re covered as
well as we’d like to be, but I think
we’re covered better than the data
might be showing,” he said.
Like Lindsay, Fiumara said
agricultural workers seemed to
prefer the Johnson & Johnson shot,
and he has seen some cases where
workers are only willing to take
that particular brand of vaccine.
The county, which has mostly
been giving out the Moderna vac-
cine, which requires two doses
over a month, will be receiving an
order of 1,000 Johnson & Johnson
doses soon.
To the east of Umatilla County,
Carrie Brogoitti, Public Health
Administrator for the Union
County Center for Human Devel-
opment, said Union County has
worked hard to provide informa-
tion about vaccines in “all lan-
guages spoken in the county.”
That includes not only English and
Spanish, but also brochures, fliers
and informational phone lines with
help in Chuukese, Marshallese,
Palauan and Pohnpeian.
“We’re doing everything we
can to reach every person in the
community, and that includes
agricultural workers,” she said.
“We’re using social media, we’re
using the newspaper, we’re using
radio.”
Brogoitti said a big key to that
effort has been partnering with
trusted community-based orga-
nizations, such as Euvalcree and
Northeast Oregon Network. Those
organizations helped develop a
consistent set of outreach materi-
als for everyone to use, help spread
information by word of mouth,
and know how to help people get
signed up for a vaccine appoint-
ment without having to refer them
to the health department for help.
“We have a ‘no wrong door’
approach,” she said.
Teresa Aguilar, an outreach and
enrollment specialist for Northeast
Oregon Network, is one of those
people who spends time on the
phone helping people get signed up
for a vaccine appointment. If they
have a language barrier or are hav-
ing trouble accessing the online
portal, she can input their informa-
tion for them before giving them
the date and time to show up.
“There’s not just a language
barrier, for some folks, there’s a
technology barrier,” she said.
Not all Eastern Oregon counties
are as heavily agricultural. Holly
Kerns, a public information officer
for Baker County, said the county,
although it has many farms and
ranches, doesn’t have the food pro-
cessing plants, dairies and large
farms that a county like Morrow
County does, so it doesn’t make
as much sense to bring the vaccine
to agricultural worksites. In Baker
County most farms and ranches
have just a handful of employees,
the “vast majority” of whom are
fulltime residents, Kerns said.
Still, she said there are plenty
of opportunities for agricultural
workers to get vaccinated, through
local clinics and pharmacies.