Seven inmates at the Oregon correctional facility, who filed a class action lawsuit in federal court last April seeking protection against the spread of COVID-19, have called on the federal government to intervene and force the state to immediately all vaccinate prisoners against COVID. 19.
The inmates filed a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction on Thursday, citing “conscious indifference” to the health and well-being of thousands of inmates across the state. The lawsuit partially states that the state decides to vaccinate healthier members of the public before inmates violate the eighth amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The push for vaccinations comes during a particularly devastating moment of the pandemic, with 11 deaths among COVID-19 inmates in the past nine days.
At least 3,252 Oregon residents in detention have tested positive for the coronavirus since the onset of the pandemic, or about a quarter of the prison.
This is a significantly higher infection rate than the general population of Oregon, but government Kate Brown and government officials have only agreed to prioritize vaccinations for prisoners in response to a recent ruling in the case. Healthcare workers have been eligible for vaccines for a month and teachers will be eligible across the country.
“While many Oregonians want to be vaccinated as soon as possible, and there are competing reasons why different groups want to move on the list, no one can dispute the evidence that captured Oregonians are at acute risk of infection,” Juan Chavez said. , a lawyer at the Oregon Justice Resource Center representing the plaintiffs said in a statement.
Prisoners do not have the chance to protect themselves in ways that many people can do outside of prison, such as physically distancing and isolating themselves at home, and the state ‘must be forced to offer vaccination to all people in detention as soon as possible to protect their health and that of the wider community. ”
Oregon’s attorney general’s office and the Department of Corrections declined to comment, citing ongoing legislation.
The lawsuit names Brown, Colette Peters, director of the correctional department, director of the health authority in Oregon, Patrick Allen and others. The lawsuit specifically states that Brown and Allen ‘interfered with medical care’ by prioritizing other members of the population, such as teachers, who do not have the same level of risk as prisoners.
Some inmates, more than 1,320 who, according to the state, were elderly or in danger, have been offered vaccinations since last week. But the group accidentally offered vaccines, according to the lawsuit, and more than 11,500 other inmates remain at risk due to mere imprisonment.
“Defendants cannot deny that they understand the need to vaccinate their population as soon as possible, just as they understood the need to enforce masked dress, social distance and effective testing, at the beginning of the pandemic, “lawyers wrote, referring to the state’s attempt to force, late, the wearing of masks at facilities in Oregon by 2020.
The lawsuit alleges that Oregon officials “took half-measures” and that they did not quickly administer vaccines to inmates, “meaning they were deliberately indifferent.”
Thirty-eight inmates with COVID-19 have now died since the onset of the pandemic.
Three state prisons counted COVID-19 outbreaks of 500 or more cases, according to the state’s January 21 outbreak report. The largest five outbreaks in the state were in prisons, with the 607 cases of Umatilla’s Two Rivers Correctional Institute. This includes prisoners, workers and other people who have become infected through close contact. The largest active outbreak is 129 inmates at the Umatilla plant.
A total of 772 corrective workers have tested positive since the start of the pandemic.
Thursday’s report on the state’s outbreak does not include the latest major outbreak – at Santiam Correctional Institute. On Friday, 68 inmates tested positive at the Salem Institution, raising the total to 86.
Prisons already have a number of long-standing issues – trustees, a subpersonal nursing department and the fact that the prisoners’ health tends to be worse than that of people of the same age out of supervision.
According to a deposit referred to in the case, government officials said inmates continue to run a laundry, food and facility industry with infected workers coming from different units in the jail, leading to new transfers from inmates to inmates.
Jennifer Black, a spokeswoman for corrections, said the 1,343 inmates, many of whom had recently been accidentally vaccinated, were “older adults, or medical or other vulnerabilities – or both.” She said the inmates would receive a second dose.
The ‘wrong communication’, she noted, was the department’s finding that inmates qualified for Phase 1A care guidelines, when the department later learned it only applies to inmates who ‘work in health care institutions in a state prison’. .
She did note that 316 inmates under the age of 60 received vaccinations during the wave. The correctional department offered vaccinations to 1,558 eligible inmates, but some refused to accept the dose.
In general, she added, other adults in custody will be included in the upcoming phase 1B of the vaccination of substances, and government officials argue that they will use these vaccinations effectively and efficiently using the existing stock.
But no date has yet been set for when more than 11,000 remaining inmates will be eligible for a vaccine. “They will be sometime after all seniors are eligible,” Black said “in March.”
– Andrew Theen; [email protected]; 503-294-4026; @andrewtheen