Migrant farmworkers, many coronavirus positive, move north from Florida to other states

Published in the Washington Post

Advocacy groups say migrant farmworkers are especially vulnerable to coronavirus due to their cramped living and working conditions

The agricultural community of Immokalee is quickly becoming an epicenter of coronavirus cases in Florida, with the state health department’s dashboard showing a large cluster of cases with nearly 900 recorded since April. And as workers move north to work the summer fields in other parts of the country, advocacy groups worry they will take the virus with them.

Farmworkers living and working in cramped conditions are especially vulnerable to exposure and infection from the virus, advocacy groups say, much like workers in the meatpacking industry who were hit particularly hard in May. And workers groups say state officials and growers were slow to respond to the threat and did not move until fairly recently to ramp up testing.

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