Kansas inmates will get the COVID-19 vaccine before most of the public. Here’s why
Jon-Wesley O’Hara didn’t get to spend Thanksgiving with his family last year.
Instead, he was quarantined with his three roommates — like him, all officers at the Topeka Correctional Facility — after one tested positive for the coronavirus. And, like many throughout the country, O’Hara canceled holiday plans because of the pandemic, including seeing his children, who live with his ex-wife.
“If there’s even a hint (of risk), I’m not going to see you guys,” O’Hara, 39, recounted telling his family. “I’m going to remove myself and remove you all from that equation, from that danger, because you are far too important to gamble with.”
Until recently, the Topeka facility avoided large outbreaks. Other prisons in the nearly 10,000-inmate system have not been so lucky. In Lansing, 995 inmates and 153 staff have tested positive, with seven deaths. In Hutchinson, positive tests among inmates have reached over 1,300. Many have had the virus more than once..
Prisons and other places considered congregate living facilities, like psychiatric hospitals and homeless shelters, are set to begin inoculating staff and residents in Phase 2 of Gov. Laura Kelly’s vaccination plan. Their presence in Phase 2, which could begin as early as February, has brought backlash to the governor’s office from several Republican lawmakers.
Kelly revised the vaccination plan to include those 65 and older in Phase 2, she said during a news conference Thursday. The change, she said, was based on “science and public health guidance,” not politics. The GOP gave it a political spin.
“It’s a good thing @GovLauraKelly listened to us and moved vulnerable seniors up the vaccine priority list. It’s a bad thing prisoners remain in the same phase as those seniors,” the Kansas Republican Party tweeted following the news conference.
O’Hara said the coronavirus what inmates at his facility expected from their time in the prison system.
“They are losing their essential freedoms of liberty and being able to go where they want to go. That is their punishment,” he said. “They were not sent here to die.”
A moral obligation
In congregate settings like prisons, where individuals live in close quarters with little ability to social distance, community spread is a constant hazard. Those who do choose to isolate live in conditions similar to solitary confinement, behind bars and all but cut off from the world, said Alice Craig, a University of Kansas Law professor working on the school’s Project for Innocence.
That’s why prisons have seen some of the largest clusters in the state since the pandemic began.
“There are many of them that can’t wait for the day that potentially they can be protected,” Craig said. “I’ve had many (clients) who have been very ill.”
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1976 that when individuals are incarcerated, the state assumes a moral and legal obligation to provide for their healthcare.
That was one of appellate public defender Jennifer Roth’s arguments in March 2020 when she and a group of colleagues asked Gov. Kelly to release some inmates amid the pandemic. It’s also why she thinks inmates and corrections staff should remain a high priority for vaccination.
Roth, legislative committee chair of the Kansas Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, has spent much of the pandemic studying infection rates and other data within state corrections facilities. She said in addition to high rates inside, at least 5,000 of the 8,500 state inmates have reported additional medical needs caused by the virus.
With new inmates constantly arriving, she said, a vaccine could eliminate the spread and, subsequently, the need for additional care after contracting the virus. It would also eliminate the risk of inmates taking the virus back into the community when they are released.
The health of the community
Communities surrounding each of the ten prisons under the Kansas Department of Corrections are also vulnerable to staff — corrections officers, medical and food service workers — who may become infected.
“Each day, staff from the community go to work at the facility, then return home to their local community,” department spokesperson Carol Pitts said in an email. “Providing COVID-19 vaccines to KDOC residents and staff are critical steps in protecting the entire community.”
For that reason, Sarah LaFrenz and the Kansas Organization of State Employees have also advocated for prioritization of inmates. LaFrenz, the president of the organization, said she believes it’s not only a “smart public health decision,” but the ethical one.
“We find it particularly disturbing when the public is not apparently aware that the health of these two groups is closely tied together,” LaFrenz said. “The virus isn’t going to discriminate whether or not this is an inmate or this is a worker.”
O’Hara said he’s looking forward to the “sigh of relief” he’ll feel when he receives his shots. As a part of Phase 2, he could get his first dose as early as next month. The protection will allow him to see his friends and family, after more than ten months of stringent precautions.
“While you’re doing this, you are also working at safeguarding the population at large, all the people that work with them, all the lives that they touch,” he said. “A lot of people just don’t see those connecting strings.”