Prevalence and clinical profile of SARS-CoV-2 infection among farmworkers in Monterey County, California: June-November, 2020

ABSTRACT As essential personnel, United States farmworkers have continued working in-person throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. We undertook prospective surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 infection and antibody prevalence among farmworkers in California’s Salinas Valley from 15 June to 30 November, 2020. Over this period, we observed 22.1% (1514/6864) positivity for current SARS-CoV-2 by nucleic acid detection among farmworkers tested at federally-qualified migrant and community health clinics, as compared to 17.2% (1255/7305) among other adults from the same communities (risk ratio, 1.29; 95% confidence interval, 1.20-1.37). In a nested study enrolling 1,115 farmworkers, prevalence of current infection was 27.7% among farmworkers reporting ≥1 potential COVID-19 symptom, and 7.2% among farmworkers without symptoms (adjusted odds ratio 4.17; 2.86-6.09). Prevalence of anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibodies increased from 10.5% (6.0-18.4%) between 16 July-31 August to 21.2% (16.6-27.4%) between 1-30 November. The high observed prevalence of infection among farmworkers underscores the need for vaccination and other preventive interventions.