Monday, January 4, 2021

Corona Daily 223: Why Prioritise Nathan Dunlap?


Epidemiologists and bioethicists in many countries have recommended including prisoners in the top priority list for covid vaccinations. USA, the country with the highest per capita prisoners, (in total 2.3 million behind bars) had initially placed the incarcerated among the earlier vaccinees. In March 2020, the state of Colorado abolished the death sentence. Nathan Dunlap was one of three prisoners on death row whose sentence was commuted to life imprisonment as a result. In 1993, the 19-year-old Dunlap was fired by the restaurant where he worked. Frustrated, he had taken revenge by shooting and killing four employees.

An op-ed in a Denver newspaper criticized giving vaccines in shortage to prisoners before giving them to honest citizens. The author of the op-ed rebuked the plan to inoculate Nathan Dunlap ahead of his own law-abiding 78-year-old father. This was followed by an infuriated backlash on social media supporting this argument.

Colorado governor Jared Polis, a generally liberal man, an openly gay governor, announced at a press briefing there was “no way the limited supply of shots would go to prisoners before it goes to people who haven’t committed any crime”.

Prisoners have now disappeared from the priority lists of many American states. Countries in the EU, UK and India haven’t given much attention to prisoners. Prima facie, it seems a fair and sensible argument that free people must receive vaccines before incarcerated people.

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Inmates live in extremely crowded conditions, sharing bathrooms and eating facilities. Social distancing is out of the question. Their access to protective gear is unheard of. Prisoners have high rates of hypertension, heart conditions and other comorbidities. In the USA, they are disproportionately Black and Hispanics, the vulnerable groups.

14 out of Colorado’s 15 largest outbreaks occurred in prisons or jails. Nationally, in the USA, more than 40 out of 50 cluster outbreaks began in prisons. The viral spread doesn’t stay in the prison walls. Contrary to what people think, an average sentence in the USA is just seven months. Jails hold many suspects for very short periods of time, sometimes only for a few hours before sending them back. The prison staff, often from the minority communities, goes home. They can carry the virus to their families and neighbours. Visitors and those released can act as transmission agents.

It is important to note there are 500,000 people in American jails awaiting trial, who are presumed innocent until convicted. In Texas jail, 80% of those who died of covid-19 were never convicted of a crime. Another 44,000 are in juvenile facilities and 42,000 in immigration detention centers.  

Guarding them are the 400,000 correction officers. One plan is to vaccinate only the prison staff (because they are not criminals). That doesn’t solve the issue of jails and prisons becoming the Covid-19 hotspots. So far in the USA, the covid case rate is four times higher in prisons than in general population, and the death percentage double inside than outside.

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Prisoners are already punished by deprivation of freedom. One health-care director described prisons as essentially long-term care facilities with bars. Morally speaking, it is debatable whether the state has a right to impose on prisoners additional punishment by exposing them to the virus or denying them vaccine protection.

Even if moralistic arguments are kept aside, data shows that prisons are some of the worst super-spreading places in any country. Immunizing incarcerated people is a practical necessity. Vaccinating those inside can make the lives of those outside safer.

Ravi 

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