112 workers test positive for coronavirus at Alleghany County Christmas tree farm
This story was updated on Tuesday, August 18, 2020 at 4:35 p.m. to reflect an updated number of virus cases at the farm in Sparta.
COVID-19 outbreaks popping up in farms across rural North Carolina struck the small town of Sparta in the state’s northwestern corner and resulted in the single largest outbreak in Alleghany County.
With 112 cases as of Tuesday, Bottomley Evergreens & Farms also has the biggest outbreak among farmworkers housed by farmers during the season, workers who are brought from Mexico with H-2A visas for temporary agricultural work. That’s more than a quarter of the farm’s nearly 400 workers.
The outbreak is included along with 10 other farms in the list of congregate living facilities with active outbreaks maintained by the Department of Health and Human Services.
Alleghany County had fewer than 70 cases at the end of July, until the virus broke out at the Bottomley Christmas tree farm, which employs nearly 400 workers. As of Monday, the county now has 180 cases.
“It’s not particularly surprising where you’ve got such a large group of workers and essentially sharing housing spaces,” said Justin Flores, vice president of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, the state’s only farmworker union. “...With just one or a few cases, it would pretty rapidly spread cases, and especially (when) you have folks that are either asymptomatic or not having severe enough symptoms to raise big flags.”
Farmworker union members employed at the farm contacted the union once workers started getting sick, Flores said.
Some workers have already recovered and completed their isolation period to return to work, said Melissa Bracey, a spokeswoman for AppHealthCare, the health department for the Appalachian region, in an email.
“Due to the nature of this virus, we are concerned with the number of individuals who are positive and living and working within close proximity to others,” said Jennifer Greene, director of AppHealthCare.
“We are continuing to work together with Bottomley Evergreens and Farms to implement control measures to limit further spread of the virus. We have provided public health and infection control guidance and will continue to work in partnership with them to prevent further spread.”
Cases were first reported at the farm in late July, which caused the farm to coordinate mass testing with the regional health department, according to AppHealthCare.
Greene said 398 individuals were tested at the farm this month and some results are still pending. A farm spokesman said in the press release that they isolated sick individuals at the farm and quarantined close contacts.
The town of Sparta recently made headlines as the site of the 5.1 magnitude earthquake on Aug. 9 felt throughout the Carolinas. A farm spokesperson told The News & Observer that the property had some damage, but didn’t answer additional questions.
How big farm outbreaks happen
Virus cases among immigrant Latino farmworkers in the state quickly surpassed 500 this summer, which health experts were expecting since the pandemic began, The N&O reported.
Representatives from the farmworkers union have visited the farm before, Flores said, which has barrack-style housing with shared rooms and a communal kitchen area where workers are in close contact.
Groups of workers from Mexico have been arriving at the farm since February, riding in buses in large groups from the U.S. border.
“You never know if somebody came sick without symptoms, you never know if somebody went to the store or had a friend over,” said Flores.
The N.C. Farmworkers’ Project, a health nonprofit in Johnston County, told The N&O previously that many workers at farms have neglected to be tested for COVID-19 in fear of losing work and the stigma of being infected.
“If you don’t have any symptoms, why should you not go to work? That’s how workers may see it. That’s probably how some of the growers may feel as well,” said Roberto Rosales, a worker safety coordinator of the N.C. State Extension in a phone interview.
The N.C. State Extension has offices across the state providing virus safety education to workers and growers and is distributing PPE as part of a new program announced by Gov. Roy Cooper last month.
A difficult but important point is that personal responsibility lies in the hands of the tens of thousands of farmworkers to protect themselves, Rosales said.
In large outbreaks this month, NCDHHS reported 31 cases in worker housing belonging to Ham Farms in Greene County, 46 cases at worker housing on Prentiss Bridge Road in Macon County, and 27 cases in housing in Wilson County. The state doesn’t include farm names with addresses of outbreaks, because housing can be located separately from farms.
Other large farm outbreaks from June include include Burch Farms in Duplin County, Sweet Berry Farms in Sampson County and Sleepy Creek Farms in Bladen County, each reporting over 50 cases.
In a meeting last week with Latino community leaders, Gov. Roy Cooper said he was preparing an executive order that would protect agricultural workers, who are overwhelmingly Latino and Black.
“I’m working ... to put together an executive order that will help protect our workers and our farmworkers or workers in food processing plants and in other areas and trying to find the way, the best way, that those orders can actually be enforced,” Cooper said in a meeting last Thursday with the N.C. Congress of Latino Organizations..
Last year, the North Carolina Growers Association brought over 19,000 seasonal farmworkers to the state, which is among the largest users in the country of the H-2A foreign labor program.
This story was originally published August 18, 2020 at 11:24 AM.
