>> DAFFODIL ALTAN: As millions
of Americans were sheltering in
place over the past months, we
began looking at the toll the
coronavirus was taking on those
who cannot stay home.
Agricultural workers-- many of
them undocumented-- who were
deemed essential to the nation's
food supply.
I've been reporting in this
community for years, and as the
annual harvest was starting in
California this spring, I was
hearing from workers who were
daily having to choose between
their jobs and their health.
>> SINTHIA:
>> ALTAN: Sinthia Hernandez is
one of the few workers out of
dozens we spoke to who agreed to
go on camera.
She's a broccoli picker in the
Salinas Valley, a region in
California that produces most of
the country's leafy greens.
In addition to having cancer,
Sinthia has diabetes-- both of
which put her at high risk for
complications if she contracts
COVID-19.
>> SINTHIA:
(calls out in Spanish)
>> ALTAN: She works for a
contractor that supplies workers
to farms in the area.
She told me she's expected to
bring her own mask to work.
>> SINTHIA:
>> ALTAN: When we met Sinthia in
April, there were no required
COVID protections for
farm workers beyond general 
rules about masks and social
distancing.
Even now, companies don't have
to tell workers about outbreaks.
>> SINTHIA:
>> If one farmworker gets sick,
you're going to get a crew,
which is typically 30 people,
sick.
And if each of those people goes
out, they're going to get three
to four other people, because
that's the infection rate.
And so the thing snowballs.
(birds chirping)
>> Good morning.
>> Good morning!
>> ALTAN: Dr. Max Cuevas runs a
network of clinics in the
Salinas Valley that primarily
serves farm workers.
>> And so with my staff, I told
them we need to plan.
With whatever little resources
we have, we need to plan to
make sure that those resources
are in fact available.
So we thought, "Let's jump in
and let's begin making masks."
♪ ♪
>> ALTAN: Just before dawn, Dr.
Cuevas' team was meeting
workers as they caught rides to
the fields.
>> SOCIAL WORKER (in Spanish):
>> MAN:
>> SOCIAL WORKER: Okay.
>> WOMAN:
>> SOCIAL WORKER:
>> When our state and federal
governments announced that the
farmworker was a part of the
essential workforce, included
with healthcare, first
responders, police, that's not
your middle-class essential
worker that people are talking
about.
This essential worker, a lot of
them do in fact live in fear.
They don't want people to know
that they're here undocumented.
There's that fear of, "I could
be gone tomorrow if I'm taken
away.
And what's going to happen to my
family?"
It's a horrible kind of fear
that people learn to live with.
You try to assure them that,
"Don't be afraid of that one
right now.
Be afraid of the virus."
♪ ♪
