One area where vaccines seem to get less drag is in prison. Nicole Lewis of The Marshall Project and Michael R. Sisak of the Associated Press report today on the difficulties of forcing workers in American prisons to take the pictures of Covid.
They report that, in Massachusetts, more than half of those employed by the Department of Justice refused the vaccine. A state study in California showed that half of all correctional workers are waiting to be vaccinated. In Rhode Island, prison workers have refused the vaccine at higher rates than incarcerated, according to medical director Dr. Justin Berk. And in Iowa, early voting among workers showed just over half of workers would receive the vaccine.
Some correctional officers are refusing the vaccine because they fear both short-term and long-term side effects of the vaccines. Others have adopted conspiracy theories about vaccination.
Public health experts remain concerned about the prospect of controlling the pandemic both internally and externally. Disease rates in prisons are more than three times as high as in the general population. Prison staff helped speed up outbreaks by refusing to wear masks, reducing people’s symptoms, and abruptly implementing social distance and hygiene protocols in confined spaces, with poor mature ventilation for viral transmission.
“People working in prisons are an essential part of the equation that will reduce disease and reduce the chance of a future Covid-19 outbreak,” said Brie Williams, correctional health expert at University of California, San Francisco, or UCSF.
At FCI Miami, officers always shut sick and elderly prisoners to hospital. Kareen Troitino, president of a local correctional officer union, said as a result, a skeletal team of workers has been left to operate the prison. Non-vaccination workers only make up for the problem as there is a risk of them becoming ill when a prison break-up occurs.
“A lot of employees are scared when they find out,‘ Oh, there was a revolution in a unit, Covid has 150 residents, ”Troitino said. “Everyone will be sick.”
Part of the fight against the vaccine is misinformation among correctional workers, said Brian Dawe, a former correctional officer and national director of One Voice United, a policy and advocacy group for officials. Most people in law enforcement are following right, Dawe said. “They get a lot of their information from the media on the right,” he said. “Many of them think you don’t have to wear masks. That’s the flu. ” National censuses have shown that Republicans without college degrees are the most stable for the vaccine.
Refusal of guards to get vaccinated has been a blessing for some people with prisoners. The vaccines have a short shelf life after they are melted down, so officers have offered prisoners the remaining vaccines instead of letting them out. Julia Ann Poff incarcerated at FMC Carswell, a federal prison in Texas, got her first sighting in mid-December, after several officers collapsed.
“I think I’m very blessed to have received it,” she wrote, using the prison’s email system. “I have lupus and a recent diagnosis of heart disease, so there was no way to let me get sick (sick).”