“It’s so much lower than we want it to be,” he said. Lauren Brinkley-Rubinstein, co-founder of The COVID Prison Project, a group of public health scientists who compile and study virus data from correctional facilities. “It’s even more damaging, as they work in a community setting where many people are at excessive risk of suffering severely and dying of COVID.”
Prison residents of the state were significantly more open to the shot. About 69 percent of the approximately 6,200 inmates offered vaccination received an initial dose of Modner vaccine, which the state began providing to most inmates and correctional workers on Jan. 18.
The Federation Union of Massachusetts Correction Officers, which represents more than 3,000 DOC employees, said the decision to eventually vaccinate depends on the worker.
“We encourage our membership to be vaccinated, but also recognize that vaccination is an individual right and decision, and that it should never be forced on our membership,” the council said in a statement.
The Department of Correction said its refusal does not tell the whole story because the count includes workers who chose to take their shots at outpatient facilities and workers with medical contraindications who refused the vaccination for health reasons.
It was unclear whether the DOC monitored the figures, and if so, how. The agency would only say that vaccination information outside the premises is “confidential to the employee.”
“DOC will continue to offer the vaccine until every inmate and staff member who chooses to be vaccinated is vaccinated, including those who changed their mind after previously refusing,” the agency said.
A MassINC poll from the end of November found that residents of Black and Latino were more reluctant to sign up for the vaccine because of the government’s long-standing mistrust of health care issues. Republicans and regular churchgoers are also the ones least eager to be first in line for a vaccine, in part because of skepticism about whether the vaccine has been thoroughly tested.
Law enforcement officers and inmates’ advocates cited misinformation, mistrust of vaccinations, safety and efficacy questions, and the history of unethical research and medical practices targeting coloreds as reasons for the vaccine’s decline.
Other prison systems across the country have reported a loud response from employees who were offered the vaccine. In California, a correctional officer told state lawmakers that less than half of its employees were vaccinated by the end of January.
The situation is similar in Iowa, where nearly half of the state’s prison workers have refused the vaccine, according to Iowa Capital Dispatch.
Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker has gone beyond federal health guidelines by prioritizing correctional workers and inmates for early COVID-19 shots, which are voluntary.
The gap in the acceptance of vaccines among inmates and staff has become a matter in a lawsuit seeking to reduce the prison population to slow down the spread of COVID-19.
In a court case, lawyers at Prisoners’ Legal Services, representing inmates in the case, said the “spread between unvaccinated staff and inmates continues to exist.”
“It is worrying that such a large number of people have so far refused the vaccine,” said the group’s executive director, Elizabeth Matos, said in a statement. ‘We are encouraged by the large number of prisoners who have taken the vaccine. But the significantly low uptake, especially for staff bringing in the virus, means that there will be a very big threat that the coronavirus will spread in this community environment and cause illness and death. “
About 3,000 DOC inmates tested positive for COVID-19, including 95 inmates who had active cases of the virus as of Wednesday, figures show.
In January, the DOC offered good credits to inmates who completed the vaccine training and received the vaccine. However, the offer was revoked earlier this month after the Baker administration, according to the Prisoners’ Legal Services, said the memorandum was not in line with its policy of reduced prison sentences.
The bounce rate of vaccinations among workers in at least one prison in the province also seems high. The sheriff’s office in Bristol County reported that more than 70 percent of employees turned down the vaccine, according to figures.
The bounce rates at other provincial facilities are less clear because two sheriffs are not monitoring bounce and four other sheriffs have yet to report any data to a special master, who has been appointed by the Supreme Court to COVID-19 in the correctional state of the state. to find. system.
Laura Crimaldi can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @lauracrimaldi.