mono-stereo
The agricultural workers tend to flow with the seasons. They’ll be here, picking strawberries or whatever, for a few months before returning home. They are an invisible population that is heavily public service avoidant. They’ll also move up and down the state depending on need. Sometimes heading very far north to do marijuana picking; asparagus on the central coast; day laboring in areas burned by fires. Sometimes they’re involved in the drug trade. When you have an infectious disease like COVID, they present a unique problem given they’re totally off the books and move constantly.
Something brought up today that ties into this is how COVID was mostly an elderly issue when it came to deaths and hospitalizations. Not for the Latino/a/x community. They had way more issues with younger people. No idea why. Maybe that they often live in closer proximity with each other so viral load was higher? Not sure. To provide some context, it’s not uncommon to have four Mexican dudes living in one room, due to the daft cost of living, and they’ll also will work in the same kitchen together. One guy is a line cook, the next is a busser, the other a barback. Their situations are just begging for infectious disease problems. And that’s what we’ve seen.
https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1003402
(older than today, obviously, but it was only just brought to my attention today)
