When will prisoners be vaccinated?
Several prisons within the DOCCS system are reporting cases or outbreaks. However, lawmakers only started making calls for a concise plan on how and when to vaccinate late last week.
Nursing home residents and staff are priority statewide. They will receive the first batch of vaccine, which will be available by December 15th. The state will receive 170,000 doses of it for this purpose.
Social distancing is difficult or impossible to achieve inside prisons, which is why advocates say distribution should happen in those places soon.
“Science and sound public health policy point to what we already know: all persons living and working in congregate settings in New York, including those incarcerated in correctional institutions, should have access to COVID vaccines, and should be included in phase 2 distribution,” said Assembly Health Committee Chairman Dick Gottfried to Spectrum News. “COVID doesn’t distinguish or discriminate between different kinds of congregate settings, and neither should the state of New York.”
The union representing corrections officers agreed that prisons need to be a priority in the state’s vaccination plan.
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