Commissioner: 62 prisoners, 50 officers have covid19

COMMISSIONER of Prisons Dennis Pulchan is awaiting Johnson & Johnson (J&J) vaccines for his officers and their charges, but said that meanwhile fewer of both groups are now covid19-positive than before.

Inmates and prison officers have been classed with residents of rural communities to receive the J&J vaccine whose advantage over other vaccines is that it is a single-dose regime and that it is less temperature-sensitive than others, making storage and transport easier.

Pulchan told Newsday the vaccines have not yet been released to the prison service.

"We are yet to start the process. We are expecting a release of the vaccines soon in prison so we can start the process."

Newsday asked if he was detecting a sense of vaccine acceptance or vaccine hesitancy among his officers and inmates.

"We did some PR work and we did inform and sensitise a lot of groups," he said. "It is my hope and my belief that when the vaccine comes, people will step forward to take the vaccines. That's not something I can predict offhand right now.

"We are managing a prison service of 3,600 inmates and it's a tough job. My officers are coping. They are coping as best they can. At the end of the day we are providing a service to the country. They are in a frontline role to get the job done."

Asked about the rate of officers getting covid19, Pulchan replied, "It is no different to that on the outside. Remember my officers would be people who would go out when they finish work, into the society, and they come from different demographics, different areas, and it's possible that what happens there is going to be entering the prison service."

Newsday asked how many officers and inmates had covid19.

Pulchan said the number of infected officers recently fallen from 64 to 50 at present, while the number of infected prisoners had fallen from 69 to 62.

"So it is going down quite rapidly: both of them (officers and inmates) are less than one per cent."

Newsday sent a text message to Chief Medical Officer Dr Roshan Parasram but up to press time got no reply as to when the prisons would receive the J&J vaccines.