Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic and Vaccine Hesitancy among Farmworkers from Monterey County, California

ABSTRACTObjectivesTo examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on farmworkers from Monterey County, California.MethodsWe recruited adult farmworkers (n=1115) between July 16, 2020 and November 30, 2020. We collected information on sociodemographic characteristics, health behaviors, economic and social stressors experienced during COVID-19, and willingness to be vaccinated via interviews by phone.ResultsStudy participants, particularly female farmworkers, reported adverse effects of the pandemic on their mental health and home environment (e.g., 24% overall reported depression and/or anxiety symptoms). The pandemic also resulted in greater financial burden for many farmworkers, with 37% food insecure and 51% unable to pay bills. Half of respondents reported that they were extremely likely to be vaccinated. Vaccine hesitancy was most common in participants who were women, younger, born in the United States, and living in more rural areas.ConclusionsWe found that the pandemic has substantially impacted the mental and physical health and economic and food security of farmworkers.Public Health ImplicationsThis study highlights the need to provide farmworkers with supplemental income, and increased mental and family health, and food support services.

Afterword

This afterword reflects on how the author spent his father's birthday looking out the window of a cabin on the edge of the Ventana Wilderness in rural Monterey County, California. By comparison with the author's native Midwest, the obituaries run in the local newspaper, the Pine Cone, are long and almost incorrigibly joyful, crafted by survivors chock-full of joie de vivre. The author then talks about how a growing number of observers wrongly regard life in Middle America as a self-inflicted health hazard or risk factor, a dangerous lifestyle choice accompanied by grave consequences. While the rest of the nation sometimes begrudges the heartland their abiding necromancy and fussy cult-of-the-dead, it is worth considering the many ways in which a culture that speaks to, and with, its deceased is a culture more timeless, by definition, than that enjoyed by good-timers and death-deniers living elsewhere. These days, Midwestern Fatalism is part catchphrase, part internet meme, and part regional stereotype. Ultimately, the author maintains that to love life is first to know and to respect death.

Cybaeus (Araneae: Cybaeidae): the adenes species group of the Californian clade

Species of North American Cybaeus L. Koch (Araneae: Dictynoidea: Cybaeidae) are common moist-forest spiders classified in Holarctic and Californian clades. Here we review the adenes species group of the Californian clade. We recognize nine species: Cybaeus adenes Chamberlin & Ivie, C. amicus Chamberlin & Ivie, C. auburn Bennett spec. nov., C. grizzlyi Schenkel, C. pearcei Bennett spec. nov., C. reducens Chamberlin & Ivie, C. sanbruno Bennett, C. schusteri Bennett spec. nov., and C. torosus Bennett spec. nov. The species of the adenes group have extremely restricted ranges in west central California from Sonoma and Napa Counties south to northern Monterey County and in east central California from Placer and El Dorado Counties. Descriptions, illustrations, range maps, and an identification key are provided for all species.

The family Cypraeidae Rafinesque, 1815, in the northeast Pacific: One spectacular species

Neobernaya spadicea (Swainson, 1823) is the only representative of the family Cypraeidae in the northeast Pacific Ocean. It ranges from Monterey Bay, Monterey County, California, to southern Baja California Sur. This remarkable species is unmistakable and is unlikely to be confused with any other cypraeid.