Prisoners in the state of Tennessee were last placed on the list to be eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine, after an advisory board feared that there would be a “nightmare about public relations” if they were given priority, Associated Press reports .
According to the report, which was published on Saturday, the stakeholder group Pandemic Vaccine Planning, the council that commissioned it to implement recommendations for vaccination by the state, noted that inmates will be a vector of the transmission of the vaccine. general population ‘if they remain’ untreated ‘.
The advisory board met for the first time in September 2020 and consists of 40 public health institutions, health care coalitions, public officials, emergency management and other organizations, according to the Associated Press report.
According to the report, some correctional personnel have been vaccinated, but the exact number in the state of Tennessee is not publicly available. According to the report, no prisoners have yet been vaccinated.
The Tennessee Department of Health did not immediately return Insider’s request for comment on Saturday.
The vaccination plan in Tennessee includes inmates in Phase 3 of its vaccination plan, behind health workers, first responders, teachers, people at high risk, and staff for corrections. Prisoners currently eligible to receive the vaccine due to their age have not yet been vaccinated, according to the AP report on Saturday.
Documents obtained by the Associated Press showed that the advisory board concluded that there would be ‘many media inquiries’ if it decided to prioritize vaccinations for prisoners, even though it claims that prisoners are ‘part of the community’ is, according to the report.
During the pandemic, U.S. prisoners are at increased risk of contracting the new coronavirus, while lawyers have complained about conditions in prisons and prisons putting prisoners at increased risk.
In July 2020, the Journal of the American Medical Association found that inmates were infected with COVID-19 at a rate more than five times higher than the general population. In December, a report by The Marshall Project and the AP found that 1 in 5 inmates in the U.S. contracted COVID-19, compared with about 1 in 20 people in the general population. More than 1,700 prisoners also died in December.
In Tennessee, one in three inmates tested positive for COVID-19, according to data from the AP and the Marshall Project.
The Associated Press report on Saturday highlights the years-long debate over the deployment of the COVID-19 vaccine in the US, and in particular the deployment of vaccines in incarcerated populations. While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued general guidelines, states eventually control admission to vaccine.