Thread by @therecount

We've talked a lot about how prisons are COVID hotbeds. So as the U.S. moves closer to a cure, here's a question worth considering:

Should inmates be given priority access to COVID-19 vaccines? A thread 👇
nytimes.com/2020/11/30/hea…

Incarcerated individuals are *four times* more likely to be infected with COVID than the general public.

So far, 200,000 inmates have already tested positive — and at least 1,450 have died.
themarshallproject.org/2020/05/01/a-s…

In the debate over who should receive the first vaccine doses, prison inmates don’t even rank among the top tiers of federal criteria.

You know who does? Correctional officers who work in those prisons, considered essential workers.

But prison workers themselves are often essential workers. Take a look at Texas, where inmates in El Paso are assisting with overflow at the local morgue.

Wonder how much they're paid for a job like this? A meager $2 per hour.
abc13.com/texas-prison-c…

As it turns out, mitigating COVID in prisons could benefit the population at large.

At yesterday’s House hearing on prison oversight, @RepKarenBass (D-CA) pointed to staggering data: As of August, 19 out of 20 confirmed U.S. COVID clusters stemmed from incarceration facilities.

As the U.S. prepares to distribute a COVID vaccine, consider this from Johns Hopkins' Dr. Eric Toner:

"We aren’t saying that prisoners should be treated any better than anybody else, but they shouldn’t be treated any worse than anybody else..."

Now it’s your turn: Should inmates be given priority access to COVID-19 vaccines?