'We're essential': CA farmworkers get vaccinated

Some essential workers, like those who pick, pack and process food, are facing barriers when it comes to getting the COVID-19 vaccine, so the shots are now coming to them.

This week about 250 essential farm workers in southern California -- who pick the fruits and vegetables shipped across the U.S., were vaccinated, in the first of what public health officials hope will be a weekly visit to agricultural areas.

Maria Razo, who sorts dates in Mecca, California said she will now feel safer going into work after being inoculated.

"We're essential for the country, to be able to feed the other families. And I, for my part, am very happy about this."

The farm workers are part of California’s agricultural industry -- which accounts for a large chunk of the country’s food supply -- they were deemed an essential workforce during the pandemic.

But California’s mostly Latino farmworkers are underrepresented in the state’s vaccination program.

"This is real, this is a real, these issues are real and Covid has shed a light to all these inequalities that we have. "

Luz Gallegos, executive director at Todec Legal Center, which provides legal advice and education for Latino immigrants, says many of the farm workers lack the internet connectivity and transportation most Americans take for granted and need to get their shots.

"We have a digital divide in our community. A lot of our community members don't have access to email or internet. That's why we have been on the ground helping them register, you know, getting through the system."

Early data released this week suggest Black Americans and Latinos are getting vaccinated at a slower pace than white Americans, even though Blacks and Hispanics have been particularly hard hit by COVID-19 with a disproportionate number of deaths.