The Fresno County Board of Supervisors and Department of Public Health (FCDPH), in collaboration with Pappas Family Farm, recently hosted the County’s the first COVID-19 vaccination event for agricultural workers.
“Farmworkers are among our most vulnerable populations because they work in close proximity to each other and then go home, often to households with multi-generational living arrangements, reducing their abilities to social distance,” says Fresno County District 1 Board of Supervisor Brian Pacheco. “Vaccinating essential farmworkers, ensures safety to their workplaces, their homes and families, our food supply, and the vital service they perform.”
As part of an effort to efficiently deliver COVID-19 vaccinations to the 70,000 Food and Ag workers in Fresno County, the FCDPH has designed a small-scale project called the “Food & Ag Vaccination Initiative”, with the goal to vaccinate 3,000 food & Ag workers beginning the final week of January 2021. The initiative will help to exercise processes and efficiencies that will ultimately help to provide vaccines to the Valley’s most critical and underserved workforce.
This initial vaccination effort will be carried out in various facilities (including both indoor and outdoor workers). In addition, this initiative will help Fresno County streamline procedures as the county prepares for the mass vaccination of this industry and will foster implementation strategies in other sectors of the workforce.
This first vaccination event was only available for Pappas employees and saw 50 staff receive their initial vaccine dose.
Fresno County Newsroom 