Tennessee panel deemed vaccinating inmates a ‘PR nightmare’
A year ago Saturday, Delaware County reported its first case of COVID-19, marking the start of the coronavirus pandemic in our community. Little did any of us realize what was to follow.
A Tennessee advisory panel tasked with deciding in what order residents should receive the COVID-19 vaccine acknowledged that prison inmates in the state were high-risk, but concluded that prioritizing them for inoculation could be a “public relations nightmare.”
The result: Prisoners are in the last group scheduled for vaccines in the state, even though the Pandemic Vaccine Planning Stakeholder group concluded that “if untreated they will be a vector of general population transmission,” according to records of the panel’s closeddoor meetings obtained by The Associated Press. To date, there is no firm timeline for prison vaccine rollouts.
The Tennessee debate reflects an issue facing states nationwide as they roll out life-saving vaccines: whether to prioritize a population seen by many at best as an afterthought, separate from the public, and at worst as non-deserving. The resistance comes even though medical experts have argued since the beginning of the pandemic that prisoners were at extremely high risk for infection given that they live in extremely close contact with each other and have little ability to social distance.
“It shows a lack of morality and an absence of empathy to allow someone to die or expose them to greater risk because they happen to be incarcerated . ... Before anyone was ever imprisoned they were someone’s child, mother, brother, father, or sister first, and they remain so and they should be considered, cared for, and seen as such,” said Jeannie Alexander, executive director of the No Exceptions Prison Collective, a Nashville-based grassroots organization.
Just a few months ago, as COVID-19 cases spiked across the U.S., The Associated Press and The Marshall Project tallied 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 the coronavirus,
a rate more than four times higher than the general population. Cases have since declined but remain higher than the general population.
Tennessee ranks 24th in the nation for prisoner cases of COVID-19. To date, 1 in 3 of the state’s inmates — more than 38,800 in total — have tested positive for the virus since the outbreak began to spread nearly a year ago. More than 40 inmates have died from COVID-19.
So far, the state has inoculated an unknown number of corrections staff — Tennessee does not publicize that information as other states do — but no prisoners. Twenty-four states have allowed at least some of their inmate population to be vaccinated, including those who qualified under the state’s age guidelines or had preexisting health conditions, according to the AP and Marshall
Project data.
At times over the past year, some of the United States’ largest coronavirus clusters were inside Tennessee’s prisons, with hundreds of active cases throughout multiple facilities.
Over the spring, Trousdale Turner Correctional, a private prison run by Tennessee-based CoreCivic, saw roughly half of its
2,444 inmates test positive for the coronavirus, while more than 1,100 inmates at the 1,700-capacity South Central Correctional Facility contracted the virus. The state only reported 17 positive inmate cases as of Friday. Visitation has remained suspended for months. The state’s prison population hovers around
30,000, with local jails housing about 19,000.
Documents from the meetings of the Pandemic Vaccine Planning Stakeholder group, did, in fact, stress the importance of the general public seeing that inmates “are people” who should be treated as “part of the community” and “if untreated they will be a vector of general population transmission.” Yet the documents concede that providing the vaccine to inmates would result in “lots of media inquiries.”
The panel comprises roughly 40 public health agencies, lawmakers, health care coalitions, emergency management and other organizations. Because it serves in an advisory capacity it is not required under Tennessee law to meet publicly, and no audio recordings of the meetings exist, according to the Department of Health. The AP obtained the meeting notes through a public records request.
According to the documents, the group first met, virtually, on Sept. 22, before vaccines were available. Tennessee’s incarcerated population came up during that meeting, when the committee talked about populations that may have been overlooked.
“Understand it would be a (public relations) nightmare but a possible liability to the state,” states one document, which is not attributed to anyone by name.
Over the next few days and weeks, cases were reported all over this area and the rest of the state. As the situation worsened, stringent mitigation measures were put in place with the assumption that they would only be required for a few weeks. Everyone knows what happened. Strict restrictions on business and interpersonal activities were in place throughout the spring, and even today we’re living under rules that would have been unthinkable a year ago. The coronavirus is still with us.
We are fortunate that for all the difficulties we’ve faced in Pennsylvania, we did not have to endure the horrifying scenes that played out in places like New York and Italy.
Nevertheless, it’s been an incredibly difficult year for all of us in so many ways. This awful disease has taken away so many of our friends, neighbors and relatives and kept people from being together in the times when they needed it most. Many who survived
COVID-19 have had to deal with serious, lasting impact on their health.
Those of us who didn’t have to deal with COVID-19 directly felt the impact as well. So many have had to endure terrible loneliness for these many months, avoiding contact with others — even close relatives — out of caution. Graduations, weddings, holiday celebrations and other moments we cherish in life had to be reconfigured or not happen at all.
Restrictions on business activity put many millions out of work, making it difficult to provide food and housing for their families. Lines at food banks were reminiscent of the Great Depression.
Our school system was upended as educators scrambled to provide lessons remotely in an effective manner. Businesses also had to find a new way to do things. Working parents faced some of the toughest challenges, trying to work from home while simultaneously helping their children learn remotely.
There’s much more, of course. Every aspect of life has been affected by the pandemic. But we’ve endured these tough times thanks to the health care workers who rose to this tremendous challenge along with the many others who kept working in essential jobs despite significant risks.
And despite all the arguing over masks and other safety measures, people in our area have by and large complied with the rules and recommendations put in place by health authorities. It has certainly helped.
Recent good news should alleviate much of the despair so many of us have been feeling for so long. New cases and deaths are at a much slower rate than they were at the worst of the pandemic. Warmer weather is on the way, which makes it easier for people to get together safely. And most significantly, the supply of vaccines is expected to increase substantially soon.
For vaccines to deliver on their considerable promise, the state and its federal government and private partners must do a much better job of getting them to the people who so desperately want them. That means many more opportunities for appointments and improvements to the systems people use to get them. The difficulties people are facing in this regard are absolutely unacceptable.
At some point, hopefully soon, the issue will switch from meeting vaccine demand to persuading skeptics that they should get immunized.
We urge readers to take advantage of the opportunity to get the vaccine when it arises and to continue exercising caution until health authorities say it’s no longer necessary.
There are still hundreds of thousands of new cases and thousands more COVID-19 deaths being reported each week in America. Fast-spreading virus variants make another surge in cases a distinct possibility.
We all want this to be over with, but a premature declaration of victory could wind up extending the crisis. And that’s the last thing any of us want.
We’ve made it this far, and the finish line is in sight. Let’s keep rising to the challenge.