NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – A Tennessee advisory panel tasked with deciding in which order residents should receive the COVID-19 vaccine recognized that state inmates were at high risk, but concluded that prioritizing them for inoculation could be a “nightmare public for relationships. ”
Result: prisoners are in the last programmed group for vaccines in the state, although the Pandemic Vaccine Planning Stakeholder group concluded that “if left untreated, they will be a vector for transmission of the general population,” according to meeting records. behind closed doors of the panel obtained by the Associated Press. To date, there is no set timetable for the release of vaccines in prisons.
The Tennessee debate reflects an issue that states face across the country as they launch life-saving vaccines: whether to prioritize a population seen by many, at best, as an afterthought, separate from the public and at worst of the hypotheses, as not deserving. The resistance comes even though specialist doctors have argued, since the beginning of the pandemic, that prisoners are at an extremely high risk of infection, since they live in extremely close contact with each other and have little ability to distance themselves socially.
“It shows a lack of morality and a lack of empathy to allow someone to die or expose them to a greater risk of being incarcerated. … Before someone was arrested, he was someone’s son, mother, brother, father or sister first, and so it remains and should be considered, cared for and seen as such, ”said Jeannie Alexander, executive director of No Exceptions Prison Collective , a grassroots organization based in Nashville.
Just a few months ago, as COVID-19 cases increased in the United States, The Associated Press and The Marshall Project recorded cumulative rates of infection among prison populations. The analysis found that by mid-December, 1 in 5 state and federal prisoners in the United States had tested positive for coronavirus, a rate more than four times that of the general population. Since then, cases have declined, but remain higher than in the general population.
Tennessee ranks 24th in the country in cases of COVID-19 prisoners. To date, 1 in 3 inmates in the state – more than 38,800 in total – have tested positive for the virus since the outbreak began to spread almost a year ago. More than 40 inmates died from COVID-19.
So far, the state has inoculated an unknown number of prison officials – Tennessee does not disclose this information like other states – but no prisoners. Twenty-four states allowed at least part of their prison population to be vaccinated, including those who qualified under the state’s age guidelines or had pre-existing health problems, according to data from the AP and Marshall Project.
Sometimes during the past year, some of the largest coronavirus clusters in the United States were inside Tennessee prisons, with hundreds of cases active at various facilities.
During the spring, Trousdale Turner Correctional, a private prison run by Tennessee-based CoreCivic, saw about half of its 2,444 inmates test positive for the coronavirus, while more than 1,100 inmates in the 1,700-capacity South Central correctional facility contracted. the virus. The state reported only 17 positive cases of inmates as of Friday. Visitation was suspended for months. The state’s prison population is around 30,000, with local prisons housing around 19,000.
The documents of the stakeholder group meetings in the planning of pandemic vaccines, in fact, emphasized the importance of the general public to see that prisoners “are people” who should be treated as “part of the community” and “if not treated, they will be a vector for transmission of the population in general. ”However, the documents admit that providing the vaccine to detainees would result in” a lot of media research “.
The panel is made up of around 40 public health agencies, legislators, health care coalitions, emergency management and other organizations. As a consultant, Tennessee law is not required to meet publicly and there are no audio recordings of the meetings, according to the Department of Health. AP obtained the meeting notes through a public record request.
According to the documents, the first group met, virtually, on September 22, before vaccines were available. Tennessee’s incarcerated population emerged during that meeting, when the committee spoke about populations that may have been overlooked.
“Understand that it would be a nightmare (of public relations), but a possible responsibility for the state,” says a document, which is not attributed to anyone by name.
Later, in December, when the group met to discuss the rise of certain age groups, in addition to teachers, prisoners were again considered.
“If we are hit hard in prisons, it will affect the whole community. The disease leaves the penitentiary institutions and re-enters society in general, as the prisoners leave their sentence ”, says the document, adding that, when prisoners get the disease,“ it is the taxpayers who have to bear the bill treatment ”.
Ultimately, prison staff and jailers were pushed into one of the first vacancies, along with the first respondents. Meanwhile, prisoners remained in the last eligible group. Even now, inmates who can qualify under the state’s age qualifications are not yet being immunized.
Tennessee currently ranks 47th among states in terms of the number of people vaccinated in the general population. Of the state’s 7 million inhabitants, more than 14% received at least one dose of the vaccine, while more than 7% received both vaccines, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The state has increased eligibility for the vaccine in recent weeks. Starting next week, the vaccine will be available to people aged 16 and over who have pre-existing illnesses – such as cancer, hypertension, obesity and pregnancy – as well as caregivers and residents of families where clinically fragile children reside.