NC to offer inmates incentives to get COVID shots. Will new plan stem deadly tide?
Ames Alexander, The Charlotte Observer
Jan. 29—Hoping to halt COVID-19's lethal march through North Carolina's prisons, state officials said Friday they will offer earlier releases and other incentives to inmates who agree to get vaccinated
Their plan comes as the state Department of Public Safety is providing hundreds of inmates and prison employees their first shots.
DPS currently is giving the vaccine to prison healthcare workers, staff members who work near infected inmates and employees and inmates 65 and older.
Since the voluntary vaccinations began inside the prisons on Jan. 20, about 1,800 of the roughly 29,000 inmates in the state prison system have been vaccinated, state Prison Commissioner Todd Ishee said. Last week, prison officials offered the vaccine to inmates 75 and older, and more than 90% of those prisoners agreed to get shots, Ishee said.