Published 9:00 am Thursday, January 14, 2021
The Washington Farm Bureau says the state’s COVID-19 vaccination plan has “failure written all over it.”
Agriculture has been working “diligently” to explain the importance of getting the entire agriculture workforce vaccinated as soon as possible, said Bre Elsey, associate director of government relations for the bureau.
She cited the state’s planned vaccination arrival dates, rollout dates and implementation delays.
High-risk Washington agricultural workers, food processing employees and grocery store workers are slated to begin receiving the COVID-19 vaccination in February, according to the state Department of Health.
As many as 15,000 workers will arrive in Washington in just the first few months of the year, Elsey said.
“A February timeline for vaccine rollout seems timely, but it will only be as successful as its implementation,” Elsey said. “As of two weeks ago, only 20% of Washington’s vaccine allotment had been successfully administered.”
The department’s timeline is an estimate and not a guarantee. Exact dates may change depending on vaccine supply and vaccine provider capacity, said Danielle Koenig, health promotion supervisor for the department.
“We understand the unique role agricultural workers play in this unprecedented pandemic, and we recognize they have had to make large shifts in how they work,” Koenig told the Capital Press. “There are many essential workers and people at high risk for COVID-19 in our state, but we don’t yet have enough vaccine supply for everyone who needs it. We are working to balance those needs with available supply and make sure we’re distributing vaccine in an equitable way.”
The department prioritized the groups in Phases 1A & 1B with the intention of getting vaccine out quickly and fairly, with a focus on getting it to the populations who are at the very highest risk and highest need, she said.
The department looked at outbreak data, the exposure risk of different settings and characteristics like age and underlying conditions that put people at higher risk for severe illness.
“We created a specific tier in 1B to focus on the essential workers at highest risk.” Koenig said. “Based on the results of our community engagement efforts and the impacts of remote learning, we included agricultural workers in that group.”
The department’s goal is to reach the highest risk agricultural workers in February—those over 50 years of age, Koenig said.
“We know that this doesn’t include everyone at high risk in this environment but since supply is limited, we must make difficult decisions about which groups get the vaccine first,” Koenig said. “We are working to get through these early groups as quickly as possible and are making progress daily.”
The state has a multi-phase vaccine distribution plan. The first wave of eligibility for agricultural workers is primarily in the “B” phases.
The state is in “Phase 1A” of vaccine distribution, according to the department website. Department material indicates an order of Phases 1A, with two tiers, and 1B, with four tiers, followed by Phases 2, 3 and 4.
Under the first tier of Phase 1A, the first workers to be eligible for the vaccination are high-risk healthcare workers in health care settings, high-risk first responders, long-term care facility residents. All other workers at risk in health care settings were covered in the second tier, according to department materials.
A worker is considered high-risk for a variety of definitions, including high risk of infection and transmission of COVID-19 because of exposure to the general public.
Under Tier 1 for Phase 1B, all people 70 years and older or 50 years and older living in a multigenerational household — a home where individuals from two or more generations reside — are eligible. The state indicates this phase begins this month.
Tier 2 is for high-risk workers 50 years and older who work in certain congregate settings, including agricultural workers, food processing workers and grocery store workers. This category also includes employees in K-12 education; child care; corrections, prisons, jails or detention centers; public transit; fire and law enforcement.
The state estimates 105,000 people are in this category.
High-risk workers under 50 in those congregate settings would be eligible for the vaccine under Tier 4 in April. The state estimates 200,000 people are in this category.
“Congregate” agriculture is defined as “specifically those who work and/or live in a congregate setting interacting with a high volume of co-workers,” compared to animals, “over extended periods of time,” more than three hours in a 24-hour day.
Tier 3 is for people 16 years and older with two or more illnesses or diseases or underlying conditions.
Information on who is eligible under Phase 2, 3 and 4 is coming soon, according to department materials.
Phase 2 includes people with disabilities that prevent them from adopting protective measures, estimated to be about 20,000 people, and critical workers in other settings who are at risk, about 280,000 people.
Phase 3 includes an estimated 450,000 workers in industries and occupations “essential to the functioning of society and at risk of exposure.”
The state estimates everyone residing in Washington who did not have access to vaccines in the previous phases total 350,000.
State projections call for 8.2 million vaccinations total.
“The safety of the agricultural workforce needs to be a priority of the state and we encourage the governor and the Department of Health to expedite rollout to ensure timely vaccination of this critical industry,” Elsey said.
https://www.doh.wa.gov/Portals/1/Documents/1600/coronavirus/VaccinationPhasesInfographic.pdf
http://www.covidvaccinewa.org/
