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Jersey’s covid vaccination team will this weekend be making its way to the prison to jab officers and inmates.
The decision to offer the vaccine to the entire HMP La Moye population was made to avoid an outbreak situation in the contained facility.
Aside from giving priority to health workers, carers and care home residents, and those with underlying health conditions, Jersey’s vaccination priority schedule currently runs by age. This is in line with the recommendations of the UK Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI).
Ross Barnes, who is the Operational Lead of Jersey’s vaccination programme, said the prison was identified as a priority group following consideration by Jersey’s Vaccine Priority Panel, an independent panel of local clinicians tasked with considering any potential exemptions to the JCVI order.
The UK’s Prison Service and Public Health England reportedly argued in favour of sending vaccination teams to jails to inoculate all inmates in February over fears that the virus could sweep through jails like care homes.
Pictured: Outbreaks in prisons could have impacts on the wider community, research says.
The JCVI acknowledged that the prison population may be at a higher risk in terms of covid-19 transmission, but decided that this did not warrant prioritising prisoners during phase 1 of the vaccine process as preventing death was the main objective.
However, UCL researchers argued in March that people in prisons are “three times more likely to die from covid-19 than the general population” due to the “high levels of underlying health conditions… and the higher risks of transmission and exposure to the virus in closed institutional settings.”
They described prisons as “high-risk environments for large, ‘explosive’ outbreaks” and warned that “failure to protect prisons from increased transmission levels will leave a window of opportunity for new variants to amplify, potentially leading to prisons as a reservoir of infection for the community.”
Pictured: Vaccinations are currently prioritised by age group.
Mr Barnes said that Jersey’s vaccine team would also be looking at offering covid-19 jabs to seasonal workers – such as those in agriculture and hospitality – that may start arriving in the island in the coming months, provided they fit the age bands open for vaccines at the time of their arrival.
Vaccines last week opened to those aged 45 upwards.
Health Minister Deputy Richard Renouf, said take-up had so far been “encouraging", adding: “Although people in this age group are less likely to experience serious complications if they develop covid-19, it’s still vitally important that they are vaccinated.
"Vaccination is the best protection against severe illness, and will mean fewer hospital admissions, and lower mortality rates.”
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