The Biden administration is making 10.5 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine available each week, but in many states, ag is still on the waiting list.
Across the country, food and ag workers are waiting for their turn at a COVID-19 vaccine. On January 18th, Arkansas moved into phase 1B of vaccinations.
“The first portion of that is individuals age 70 or above, as well as individuals in the education system. So, once they get through that, there are about 450,000 people a part of that segment... then they will move into other portions of phase 1B, and food and agriculture is part of that,” according to Arkansas Secretary of Ag, Wes Ward.
Ward says that his department is working closely with the Department of Health to provide the latest information to the industry, including a recent stakeholder call with more than 100 ag groups and employers
“We think that it is critical to just have people that are there in those communities, knowing what’s going on, what’s going to happen, and talking about how important the vaccine is,” Ward states.
He hopes keeping people informed will encourage workers to accept the vaccine: “There’s certainly some people with hesitancy on getting the vaccine. It’s a statewide effort from the Department of Health and from me to show the vaccine is safe and encourage people to get the vaccine and really just having all of us working together as we move forward.”
Arkansas is home to 29 USDA processing plants and another 60 smaller private facilities. Secretary Ward says that they are making the necessary investments to implement safety protocols, while workers wait for the vaccine.
“We have conversations with them and they realize just how important the employees are. If the employees aren’t there they can’t work and that impacts business, but they do care about the employees and they want to make sure they are safe and taken care of and they have taken pretty significant steps to make sure that is accomplished,” he adds.
So far, Arkansas has administered nearly 611,000 doses of the vaccine, primarily to healthcare providers, first responders, including 70 and up, and educators.