Prisoners, corrections staff get no special access to vaccine

Vermont’s policy for vaccinating residents gives no special preference to its incarcerated population or those who work with them and Interim Commissioner James Baker of the Department of Corrections said despite the responsibility he feels for those inmates under his care and his staff, he understands the state’s position.

Vermont has recently opened the availability of COVID-19 vaccinations for people 75 and older with the next “age band” served planned for people 70 and older and then 65. While incarcerated people are in congregate living spaces they can’t leave, the policy is not different for them or corrections staff.

On Monday, Baker said that was the policy for “right now,”

“It’s all driven by the amount of vaccine that’s coming into the state. You can’t vaccinate if you don’t have vaccines. The early plan was focused by the health department on where were the deaths occurring,” he said.

Kelly Dougherty, deputy commissioner for the Vermont Health Department, said her agency gets recommendations from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, and the CDC’s the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices but states can set their own priorities based on local experience and knowledge.

Dougherty said the health department staff talking about priority groups looked at the circumstances facing corrections, but she said the administration of Gov. Phil Scott had made its top goal the reduction of deaths whenever possible.

Between the limited access to vaccine doses and research showing most of the deaths in the state seemed to be among older residents and not based on physical circumstances led to the age-based prioritization.

“We weren’t seeing deaths among people in corrections. We have had some outbreaks for sure in correctional facilities, but when we really looked at the data as far as who’s dying from COVID in Vermont, it’s clearly people of advanced age,” she said.

Baker said on Monday morning that he was expecting to be part of a meeting later in the day on the expectations for vaccine availability in Vermont in the future. He said he expected that Vermont’s access was likely to improve as other companies brought their vaccines to market.

“The focus on the correctional staff and the inmate population will be taken into consideration once there’s a better understanding of what the next percentage increase of vaccines coming into the state will be,” he said.

Baker said corrections staff had been in conversations with health department staff on a regular basis and that he talked to Dr. Mark Levine, commissioner of the Vermont health department.

The Vermont corrections’ facilities are the cleanest in the country, according to Baker, and no one from the incarcerated population or the staff have died from COVID. Baker said that meant the best way to use the vaccines effectively to prevent death was to “follow the statistics.”

“Those were the numbers that drove the decisions, where the vaccines were going to go,” he said.

According to a report from the nonprofit, nonpartisan Marshall Project, only Maine has had fewer cases of COVID in its facilities.

Falko Schilling, advocacy director for the ACLU of Vermont, cited the Marshall Protect report as saying one in five people in Vermont’s prisons had been infected with COVID-19, which is 11 times the rate of other Vermonters.

“We think it’s imperative that these people who live and work in the prisons and other congregate settings have access to this vaccine early because they don’t have the ability to social distance the way the rest of the public does, and this is something we need to do to protect the health and safety of everyone who lives and works in these facilities,” he said.

Schilling said 14 other states had already taken steps to give inmates and corrections staff priority and said he hoped other states would take similar steps.

Baker said he was confident that correctional facilities would be considered for prioritization in the future because protection of the incarcerated population and staff also protects the communities where the facilities are located.

“We test to suppress, that’s our strategy” he said.

Inmates are tested on their first day, their seventh day and their twelfth. Staff are tested every two weeks and the facilities as a whole are tested every six weeks.

Baker said the incarcerated population housed in Mississippi, which is about 180 people, will be vaccinated, like other Vermont inmates, in order of age and therefore vulnerability to the virus.

According to Dougherty, members of the incarcerated population who are 75 or older have already been vaccinated by health department staff.

patrick.mcardle

@rutlandherald.com