In Massachusetts, Inmates Will Be Among First to Get Vaccines

Tens of thousands of prison inmates in Massachusetts will be among the first to be offered coronavirus vaccines, before home health aides, seniors and medically vulnerable residents of the state.

The inmates, along with people who live in homeless shelters and other congregate settings, will be vaccinated by the end of February, after health care workers, emergency medical workers and residents of long-term care facilities receive the shots.

The state’s high prioritization of inmates is unusual. A dozen states have listed prisoners among those set to receive vaccines in the first round of inoculations, but none ranks inmates so highly. Federal health officials have recommended that corrections officers and staff at state facilities receive high priority but have said nothing about inmates. The federal prison system has said it will vaccinate officers and staff first.

(On Wednesday, researchers at seven universities urged the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to prioritize the vaccination of people in prison and recommend that vaccines be administered to inmates at the same time that correctional officers and staff receive them.)

“This is all because there is limited supply,” said Jennifer Kates, senior vice president and director of global health and H.I.V. policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation. “Tough decisions have to be made.”

Some of the largest coronavirus outbreaks in the country have taken place in the nation’s prisons. At least 400,000 cases have been reported among inmates, and at least 1,800 deaths have been reported among inmates and staff, according to a database maintained by The New York Times.

There are more than two million incarcerated people in the United States. An estimated 20 percent have been infected with the coronavirus. Inmates are four times more likely to be infected than the general population, and twice as likely to die of Covid-19.

While the stereotype of prisoners is that they are young, more than one in 10 nationwide is over age 55 and therefore more vulnerable to the virus, according to Lauren Brinkley-Rubinstein, co-founder of the Covid Prison Project, which tracks cases among incarcerated people nationwide.

Inmates also have higher rates of chronic medical conditions, like diabetes and hypertension, that increase the risk of severe disease if they become infected. Many suffer from mental illness.

Prison infections can lead to outbreaks in the community. One in seven infections in Chicago, for example, was linked to people going in and out of the Cook County Jail, according to a recent study in the journal Health Affairs. The jail is “one of the largest known nodes of SARS-CoV-2 spread in the United States,” the researchers said.

Yet there has been no comprehensive plan to roll out the vaccine for inmates. Even in those states prioritizing prisoners for early vaccination, details are often vague. Some states have simply decided that when older adults and medically vulnerable residents are vaccinated, inmates in those categories will be included — but not other prisoners.

The decision in Massachusetts to prioritize prisoners was driven by a commitment to equitable access amid a pandemic that has taken a disproportionate toll on people of color, who are also overrepresented behind bars, said Dr. Simone Wildes, an infectious disease specialist and a member of the state’s Covid-19 vaccine advisory group.

“We used equity as a core principle in our recommendations,” Dr. Wildes said. “We have had a lot of cases of Covid in the prisons, and we wanted to make sure those at highest risk were getting the vaccine first.”

Black and Hispanic people account for just over half of the prison and jail populations in Massachusetts, although they represent fewer than 20 percent of the state’s population, according to the Prison Policy Initiative, an advocacy organization.

Allocating scarce medical resources to people in prison can be controversial, and the Massachusetts advisory committee had some “very robust discussions,” Dr. Wildes said. But criticism so far has been muted.

“Those at greatest need — we have to take care of them,” Dr. Wildes said. “You can’t socially distance in prison.”

Nearly 4,000 infections have already been reported among inmates and corrections officers in Massachusetts, and the number of incarcerated people testing positive has been steadily increasing since November.

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Answers to Your Vaccine Questions

With distribution of a coronavirus vaccine beginning in the U.S., here are answers to some questions you may be wondering about:

    • If I live in the U.S., when can I get the vaccine? While the exact order of vaccine recipients may vary by state, most will likely put medical workers and residents of long-term care facilities first. If you want to understand how this decision is getting made, this article will help.
    • When can I return to normal life after being vaccinated? Life will return to normal only when society as a whole gains enough protection against the coronavirus. Once countries authorize a vaccine, they’ll only be able to vaccinate a few percent of their citizens at most in the first couple months. The unvaccinated majority will still remain vulnerable to getting infected. A growing number of coronavirus vaccines are showing robust protection against becoming sick. But it’s also possible for people to spread the virus without even knowing they’re infected because they experience only mild symptoms or none at all. Scientists don’t yet know if the vaccines also block the transmission of the coronavirus. So for the time being, even vaccinated people will need to wear masks, avoid indoor crowds, and so on. Once enough people get vaccinated, it will become very difficult for the coronavirus to find vulnerable people to infect. Depending on how quickly we as a society achieve that goal, life might start approaching something like normal by the fall 2021.
    • If I’ve been vaccinated, do I still need to wear a mask? Yes, but not forever. Here’s why. The coronavirus vaccines are injected deep into the muscles and stimulate the immune system to produce antibodies. This appears to be enough protection to keep the vaccinated person from getting ill. But what’s not clear is whether it’s possible for the virus to bloom in the nose — and be sneezed or breathed out to infect others — even as antibodies elsewhere in the body have mobilized to prevent the vaccinated person from getting sick. The vaccine clinical trials were designed to determine whether vaccinated people are protected from illness — not to find out whether they could still spread the coronavirus. Based on studies of flu vaccine and even patients infected with Covid-19, researchers have reason to be hopeful that vaccinated people won’t spread the virus, but more research is needed. In the meantime, everyone — even vaccinated people — will need to think of themselves as possible silent spreaders and keep wearing a mask. Read more here.
    • Will it hurt? What are the side effects? The Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine is delivered as a shot in the arm, like other typical vaccines. The injection into your arm won’t feel different than any other vaccine, but the rate of short-lived side effects does appear higher than a flu shot. Tens of thousands of people have already received the vaccines, and none of them have reported any serious health problems. The side effects, which can resemble the symptoms of Covid-19, last about a day and appear more likely after the second dose. Early reports from vaccine trials suggest some people might need to take a day off from work because they feel lousy after receiving the second dose. In the Pfizer study, about half developed fatigue. Other side effects occurred in at least 25 to 33 percent of patients, sometimes more, including headaches, chills and muscle pain. While these experiences aren’t pleasant, they are a good sign that your own immune system is mounting a potent response to the vaccine that will provide long-lasting immunity.
    • Will mRNA vaccines change my genes? No. The vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer use a genetic molecule to prime the immune system. That molecule, known as mRNA, is eventually destroyed by the body. The mRNA is packaged in an oily bubble that can fuse to a cell, allowing the molecule to slip in. The cell uses the mRNA to make proteins from the coronavirus, which can stimulate the immune system. At any moment, each of our cells may contain hundreds of thousands of mRNA molecules, which they produce in order to make proteins of their own. Once those proteins are made, our cells then shred the mRNA with special enzymes. The mRNA molecules our cells make can only survive a matter of minutes. The mRNA in vaccines is engineered to withstand the cell’s enzymes a bit longer, so that the cells can make extra virus proteins and prompt a stronger immune response. But the mRNA can only last for a few days at most before they are destroyed.

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