. HARRISBURG Early in January, Angelo Romero sat in his cell at SCI-Smithfield and thought there would be no way people incarcerated, like himself, would get the COVID-19 vaccine. “The inmates don’t stand a chance on being vaccinated if it’s going to cost the [Department of Corrections] money,” he wrote in a letter to Spotlight PA. But to Romero’s surprise along with prisoners’ rights advocates, public health experts, and even other inmates the opposite has happened. Three out of the state’s 23 prisons have so far offered vaccines to inmates and staff, and the number of inmates who have gotten the vaccine at two of those facilities is upwards of 70% no small feat for a department that, on average, vaccinates just over a quarter of its population for the flu.
Waymart
Pennsylvania
United-states
Gracedale
North-carolina
Philadelphia
Carnegie-mellon-university
University-of-pennsylvania
Smithfield
Drexel-university
Lewisburg
American