Prison outbreaks — releasing some inmates would curtail contamination, ease vaccine logistics
“[A]s a nurse and advocate for the health of people experiencing incarceration, I worry the interest in speedy vaccination distracts from advancing the solution that will have longer and broader positive impact on public health: decarceration.
Last month, over 1,600 people connected to prisons in Canada (over 1,400 prisoners and 200 staff) tested positive for COVID-19. Fourteen hundred prisoners represents over 3.5 per cent of all prisoners in the country. Let me repeat that: in one month, 3.5 per cent of prisoners in the entire country contracted COVID-19. Since the pandemic began 10 months ago, 660,000 people or 1.5 per cent of Canadians have tested positive.
These numbers represent a human rights violation in and of themselves. States have a legislated obligation to protect people in their custody from harm. With numbers like these, Canada and the provinces/territories have placed prisoners at exponential risk of infection, morbidity and death.
Over two-thirds of prisoners in Canada are remanded in pretrial custody: they have not been tried, convicted or sentenced. These people are getting COVID-19 while in state care. And the public servants working in these spaces are also placed at extremely high risk.
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