Now that the covid-19 vaccine is widely available, safe as any other vaccine, and saving countless lives across the globe, the world is beginning to open again. And not just retail shops and restaurants. Schools and colleges are opening, too, and many are requiring proof of vaccination to step foot on campus. Teachers in K-12 jobs have been demanding vaccines for months, as a prerequisite of their going back into the classroom, so bully for them!
Strange, though, that the one place in which covid-19 can spread so effectively--even more so than in nursing homes--the people who work there have retarded headway. What gives?
Two enterprising reporters in the newsroom--Kat Stromquist and Ginny Monk-- published a story on the front page of last Sunday's paper about the number of prison workers who haven't been vaccinated against covid-19.
Or as their story put it: "Of more than 4,700 Arkansas Department of Corrections employees, an estimated 42 percent have received at least one shot, an agency spokeswoman said ... ."
If we could add a word to that sentence, and we can in this column, it would be "only." As in, only 42 percent received a shot.
The other 58 percent should be told to get the shot soonest, or find other work.
(But they can't be told that.)
This is a matter of life and death. And there are many older and sicker people in the state's prisons. Some of whom can't take the vaccine for medical or other reasons. Which is why the doctors tell us herd immunity is so important: Vaccinating the lion's share of people stops the virus cold, or at least slows the virus cool, which helps protect the more vulnerable who can't get the vaccine for any number of reasons.
If employees at a college or university can be made to take the vaccine as a job requirement, with exceptions for medical or religious reasons, then employees at our state's prisons should be told to do so, too.
(But they can't be told that.)
As of the first of this month, Arkansas already had the third-highest infection rate among prisoners. There is a school of thought, or at least a school of fleeting notion, that prisoners don't matter. You've read the letters: Put them on an island and give them some seeds.
But something tells us that the 49 people who have already died from covid-19 in Arkansas' penal system didn't receive the death penalty in court. And as long as the rest of us are responsible for their health--and we are--We the People should take the proper steps during the end days of this pandemic.
(But we can't.)
Sunday's story also included this nugget, which tells you all you need to know about the Arkansas General Assembly in the 2021 session: "The [Department of Corrections] can't require the shots. A new state law, Act 977 of 2021, took effect last month and prohibits state agencies from requiring their workers to be vaccinated without seeking special permission from the Legislature.
"The legislation was among a spate of bills considered during this year's session meant to curb state and local entities from requiring certain public-health measures, such as mask-wearing."
And in its efforts to prove their rightest-wing bona fides, the majority of lawmakers have made the prison system a possible death trap. Let's give that majority the shakiest benefit of the doubt, and say lawmakers didn't know all this at the time they passed the bill, and this is just another consequence that they hadn't thought of, among many.
Fine. Then the DOC should seek special permission from the Legislature.
Somehow, that option doesn't assure. And we're on the outside of the pen, looking in.