Clinics wait to vaccinate farmworkers: 'Our hands are tied'
But in some states, farmworkers are not yet in the priority groups authorized to receive the shots. Her clinicsโ vaccine will instead go to patients on the state eligibility list, which was expanded this week to teachers. An estimated 9,000 agricultural workers in the U.S. have died of COVID-19, said Jason Lusk, professor of agricultural economics at Purdue University. In Washington state, workers are beginning to arrive to toil on hops farms and in cherry and apple orchards. Florida, which grows half the nation's domestic tomatoes and 70% of its citrus fruit, hasn't specified farmworkers in its vaccine priority groups.