Category: Prison Conditions

As the first part in the blog’s vaccine education campaign, and following up on yesterday’s post, I’m very happy to offer you a Frequently Asked Questions document created by Drs. Leah Rorvig and Brie Williams with medical/scientific information about the COVID-19 vaccine from a source that 100% wishes you well and you can trust. Drs. Rorvig and Williams are active members of AMEND, the physician organization that issued the memo urging San Quentin to reduce its population to 50% of design capacity. Here goes:

COVID-19 Vaccines: The Basics

• Vaccines teach the immune system how to recognize and fight off the virus that causes COVID19, which can prevent vaccinated people from getting sick. Vaccines are not used to treat
  people who are currently infected with COVID-19.
• There are currently two vaccines available in the United States – one made by Pfizer and one
  made by Moderna
• The vaccines are both 95% effective at preventing illness due to COVID-19
• The vaccines have now been administered to millions of people and have a strong record of
  safety
• While the vaccines were developed in record time, they have gone through all of the same
  steps required of any vaccine before it can be approved for use
• Both vaccines have two doses, either three weeks apart (Pfizer) or four weeks apart (Moderna)
• The vaccine is given as a shot in the upper arm

Is the COVID-19 vaccine safe? Should I worry that the vaccine was made so quickly?

• Both vaccines were found to be safe and effective in tens of thousands of adults (including Bla
  and Latinx people) who participated in high quality research – the same research that any new
  vaccine or medicine must undergo before being approved.
• Both vaccines were reviewed faster than normal, but this is because so many people are getting
  sick and dying of COVID-19 that it is considered a national emergency.
• Both vaccines have been authorized by the FDA (Food & Drug Administration) and the
  California Department of Public Health.
• In the U.S. alone, more than 5 million people have now received at least one dose of a COVID19 vaccine.

Has anyone died as a result of the COVID-19 vaccine?

• No one has died from the COVID-19 vaccine. More than 350,000 Americans have died from COVID-19.

What are the possible side effects of the vaccine? Should I be worried about them?

• The most common side effects of the vaccine are arm soreness, tiredness, headache, muscle
  pain, chills, joint pain, and fever. These side effects are more common after the second dose of
  the vaccine and – if they occur – usually resolve within 2 days.
• These symptoms are normal and they are a sign that your body is building protection against
  the virus that causes COVID-19.
• Among the millions of people who have now received the vaccine, a very small number of
  people have experienced severe allergic reactions to COVID-19 vaccines. If you have ever had a severe allergic reaction to a vaccine or other substance in the past, you should discuss this with
  the health care professionals giving you the vaccine.

The COVID-19 vaccine is an mRNA vaccine. Does that mean it changes your DNA (also called your genetic code)?

• The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines both use “messenger RNA” (also called mRNA) to teach the
  cells in your body to recognize the outside part of the virus that causes COVID-19. That way, if
  you are exposed to the virus, your immune system will stop it from making you sick.
• The COVID-19 vaccine does not change your DNA. mRNA is not the same as DNA, and it
  cannot combine with your DNA to change your genetic code.

Can I get COVID-19 from the vaccine?

• No. Because of how the vaccine works, it is impossible to get COVID-19 from the vaccine. However, the vaccine prevents 95% (and not 100%) of COVID-19 cases. Even if you have been vaccinated, if you have a cough, fever, or other symptoms, then there is a chance you could have COVID-19, and you should ask to speak to medical staff right away.

I have hepatitis C and/or HIV. Is it safe for me to get the COVID-19 vaccine?

• Yes. It is safe for people with hepatitis C and HIV to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. There are very few medical reasons not to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.

Do I need to keep wearing a mask after I receive the COVID-19 vaccine?

• Yes. Unfortunately, even people who have had the COVID-19 vaccine may be able to get infected, and although the vaccine protects them from getting seriously sick, they may spread COVID-19 to others. (We do not know how common this is yet.) Until the majority of people have been vaccinated against COVID-19, everyone needs to continue wearing masks, practicing physical distancing, and frequently washing their hands.

If I already had COVID-19, do I need to get the COVID-19 vaccine?

• COVID-19 vaccination should be offered to you even if you already had COVID-19
• COVID-19 vaccination has been shown to be safe in those who have already had COVID-19
• Right now, research shows that reinfection with the virus that causes COVID-19 is incredibly rare in the 90 days after you first get sick with COVID-19. Therefore, the vaccine should be offered to everyone, although some health systems are currently prioritizing patients who have not already had COVID-19 while the vaccine supply is very limited.
• You should not get the vaccine if you are currently sick with COVID-19.

Is the COVID-19 vaccine mandatory (required)?

• No, there is no mandatory vaccination requirement from either the state or federal government. While vaccine doses will be limited in supply at first, public health officials – and the team at AMEND at UCSF hope that by telling people about the safety and effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccines, we can encourage people to voluntarily take the vaccine. The AMEND team is all planning to get the vaccine and some of us have already gotten it!

I got the COVID-19 vaccine because I want things to go back to normal. When will that happen?

• We don’t know when enough people will be vaccinated so that things will go back to normal. But the more people that are vaccinated inside and outside of prison, the sooner things will begin to return to normal. Also, when you get the vaccine you protect other people around you by making it less likely for them to get COVID-19.

Did AMEND staff get the COVID-19 vaccine?

• Yes. All of the AMEND team members who see patients already have received the COVID-19 vaccine.
• Other AMEND staff will receive it as soon as it is available to them.

I heard the guards/officers, health care staff, or warden at my facility are refusing to get the vaccine. If they aren’t getting it, why should I?

• There are many reasons that people are afraid to get the vaccine. These include a lack of knowledge about the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine, a lack of understanding about COVID-19 itself, a long history of mistrust of the medical system, and more. We encourage you to empower yourself to learn as much as you can about the COVID-19 vaccine. It is important that you make your own decision about getting the vaccine regardless of what other people are doing. The team at AMEND and our partners on this FAQ all support vaccination. See above for a complete list of our partners.

I still have more questions, what should I do?

• You can ask your friends or family to get more information about the COVID-19 vaccines at these trusted sites:
  • https://covid19.ca.gov/vaccines/
  • https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/faq.html
• To learn more, you can also call the Transitions Clinic Network Reentry Healthcare Hotline to speak to a community health worker with a history of incarceration. Toll free, M-F, 9-5pm. Call: 510-606-6400.
• If you or your loved ones have additional ideas for questions that we can answer on this information sheet, please email us at info@amend.us or write to Amend, 490 Illinois St, Floor 8, UCSF Box 1265, San Francisco, CA 94143.

References

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: COVID-19 Vaccination
• https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/info-by-product/clinical-considerations.html
• https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/faq.html
• State of California COVID-19 Vaccine Information Center https://covid19.ca.gov/vaccines/
• UCSF COVID-19 Vaccine Information Hub https://coronavirus.ucsf.edu/vaccines

A few weeks ago, when I pushed to prioritize prisons in California’s vaccine plan, I identified two serious problems: historically understandable mistrust of CDCR by the incarcerated population and COVID-19 denialism among prison staff. Earlier this week I participated in an extremely informative call with lawyers, AMEND doctors, activists and advocates, regarding the progress of CDCR’s vaccination program, the upshot of which is: The staff is the problem.

Here’s a quote from an email sent by the excellent Sara Norman of the Prison Law Office:

The State is currently vaccinating people in Phase 1A, which is three million people; they only have about two million doses so far, though, and have only vaccinated about 500,000.  Phase 1A includes people in long-term care facilities and some frontline medical workers, which in CDCR means people incarcerated at CCWF skilled nursing facility, CMF, and CHCF (all of which are in the middle of their first serious outbreaks) and some staff at all the prisons.  So far, we know that at least 1200 incarcerated people have been vaccinated (first dose).  As I mentioned on the call, CCHCS (the federal Receiver who runs health care in CDCR) expects to offer the vaccine to everyone at those three prisons within the next week or two. 

Our understanding is that at some point today, the California Department of Public Health will officially post the Phase 1B, Tier Two vaccine eligibility list, which will include all people who are incarcerated.  Statewide, there are about eight million people in Phase IB, counting both Tiers 1 and 2.  We are told that CCHCS expects to receive vaccine to start its Phase IB work in about 10 to 14 days. 

Sara added a few important points in her overview on the phone call. The acceptance rate among incarcerated people was not 100%, but it was quite high; as of Tuesday, 1227 vaccines were offered and only 108 were refused (this is a considerably higher rate of compliance than the rate in the general population.) The PLO spoke to the people who refused and identified some problems with vaccine education and communication, which should not surprise you if you’ve read this post.

The vaccination plan at CCWF, CMF, and CHCF is quite ambitious–they plan to offer the vaccine to every single person at these facilities in the next few days. The challenges they face involve serious nursing shortages. Not only do they need medical personnel to administer the vaccines and care for the sick, but they need to check vitals for the thousands of isolated people twice a day. The strain on the nurses is incredible, but they are forging through with the plan, including exhortations and threats of dismissal from Shereef Aref, the Chief Executive Officer of CCHCS. Paige St. John of the Los Angeles Times reports:

“A refusal to a mandate is insubordination,” Dr. Shereef Aref wrote. “It is not acceptable and it will not be tolerated.”

First refusals will result in a write-up, Arf wrote. “A second refusal will be referred, as a request for Adverse Action, to the Hiring Authority.”

One prison medical worker, who spoke anonymously out of fear of losing her job, said the stress was intense.

“Nursing staff [have] children out of school; to be away 16 hours not including walk time to the parking lot and drive time home could add up to 18 hours a day,” she said. In many cases, both spouses work at the prison. “It’s stressful. There is no such thing as ‘social distancing’ in prison.

“Also, the office staff have masks, but if you go on a housing unit, very few have masks because of the scarcity. … We are confused as to why they seem to have masks for administrative posts.”

She added, “Oh, and an inmate committed suicide yesterday. And two officers committed suicide in March.”

The Prison Law Office personnel were told that other incarcerated people, particularly people who are under inpatient care, were next on the list, and that the plan would roll to other prisons in mid-January, prioritizing people according to a complicated COVID-19 risk algorithm, which highlights the need to target people who are “covid-naive,” i.e, who have not contracted COVID-19 in last 90 days. Among those people, the first to be offered the vaccine are at higher risk due to age, preexisting conditions, or both. Reportedly, no thought is being given to the differences between CDCR facilities who have and have not reached herd immunity the hard way. Nor has there been an effort to prioritize incarcerated firefighters, despite the obvious transmissibility reasons that put them at the top of the list for other vaccines.

But even these are minor problems compared with what is emerging as the most serious problem: the staff. Vaccines have been rolled out for staff at all institutions, prioritizing medical and frontline workers or people who work directly with patients, but generally the plan is to offer the vaccine to all staff throughout January and February. The administration of staff vaccination has been contracted out of CDCR/CCHCS to another organization. So far, 6,700 staff members have been vaccinated, most of them at CHCF and at CMF. However, there is disconcerting evidence of significant refusal rates among staff. Incarcerated people have heard rumors that 40% of staff members are refusing the vaccine. Also, in response to a CDCR survey, about 40-50% reportedly expressed reluctance about vaccination, citing reasons such as “I wanna wait and see what happens.” The people on the call were unsure whether there was any educational campaign targeted at the staff, nor did anyone seem to know whether CDCR, as employer, would condition employment upon vaccination. In case you’re wondering whether terminating vaccine refusers from employment at CDCR would be legal from an employment law perspective, the answer is: yes, it would be.

This distressing information suggests that the problem is not only with CCPOA leadership, who have been far more interested in spending millions on losing punitive voter initiatives than in the health of their membership, but also with the rank and file, where Trump-style COVID denialism seems to have found a solid foothold. Just this week, we had ample proof of what happens when vast ignorance, misinformation campaigns, and fetid ideologies come together, right? To my shock and amazement, in the face of thousands of their colleagues sick and twelve staff deaths, including two in December, prison guards are planning an excursion to… Las Vegas for a board meeting. Wes Venteicher of the Sacramento Bee reports:

The union for California state correctional officers has invited representatives from every prison to gather in Las Vegas for a board of directors meeting even as their institutions contend with surging coronavirus outbreaks.

The California Correctional Peace Officers Association’s board includes representatives from all 35 prisons plus some members who represent officers outside prisons, such as parole agents and officers who work at fire camps.

Also invited to the two-day meeting, scheduled for Jan. 26 and 27 at Caesar’s Palace, are roughly a dozen members of the union’s committees along with retired chapter members, according to a website set up for union members to make travel arrangements.

A dozen state prisons have reported more than 200 new COVID-19 infections among inmates in the last two weeks, and another six have reported more than 100 new infections. More than 2,500 prison employees have reported new infections in the last two weeks and about 13,000 out of 55,000 have contracted the virus since the start of the pandemic.

Most large in-person meetings have been canceled during the coronavirus pandemic due to concerns about creating “super-spreader” events in which an infection may be passed around and then spread far beyond the group when the gathering is over.

California has prohibited most in-person gatherings of more than one household, whether they are held indoors or outdoors, under emergency orders. Nevada permits gatherings of up to 50 people.

Glen Stailey, the union’s president, referred questions to a union spokeswoman when reached by phone Wednesday.

“These meetings are important to the association and its members as it relates to many topics including COVID-19 inside prisons,” CCPOA spokeswoman Nichol Gomez said in an email.

Gomez said the group would follow all Nevada and California state protocols and is “constantly evaluating the situation and will make decisions accordingly.”

Gomez did not respond to questions about how many of the members who have been invited plan to attend, nor did she say whether the members plan to get tested or quarantine before or after the trip.

Note that the quarterly meeting is typically held in Sacramento. Apparently, CCPOA leaders decided that early 2021 was the right time to party. If, as Gomez stated, the meeting “relates” to COVID-19 inside prisons, they don’t apparently mean “relates” as in “aims to prevent.” The risk that Christmas gatherings of COVID-denier staff members may be partly to blame for the horrific infection rate does not seem to have been considered. In the absence of any positive educational or other initiative from their employer or union, the only visible effort addressed at reducing COVID-19 denialism among correctional staff comes from our good friends at Amend SF. In the off-chance that you, dear reader, are a correctional staff member and are reading this and open to persuasion, please, in the name of everything that is holy, watch this and share it widely with your colleagues:

COVID-denialism among staff affects not only the odds of infection among incarcerated people, but also the messaging they receive from staff members. Several people with good friends and loved ones behind bars mentioned that their connections inside have heard correctional officers tell incarcerated people that they can die from taking the vaccine and that COVID-19 is not real.

In the face of this problem, and the dearth of efforts by CDCR to quash this ignorance, I have two proposals. The first involves health officers in all cities and counties surrounding prisons in California–people like Dr. Matthew Willis, Marin County’s top health official, who tried to stop this disaster and were sidelined and ignored. This is your moment. Please organize and liaise not only with the prisons in your respective counties and demand that they condition employment upon vaccination. Tell them that there is now quantitative data, some of which comes from our original research and some from the work of others, to show the impact of their neglect on your communities. These COVID-19 deniers among the staff are endangering you and the people who live in your county. Please get involved, as there is not a moment to lose.

The other proposal is mine, and its logic is simple: If the staff won’t do their part to protect incarcerated people, we need to raise the vaccination rate among incarcerated people as close to 100% as we possibly can. And so, dear reader, if you are a formerly incarcerated person–especially if you’ve only recently been released and you still have some good friends inside–I need your help. I can also use help from family members and loved ones of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people. Please send me a short video you can film on your phone–make it shorter than a minute, so someone inside might be able to watch it quickly–in which you address the folks you know and care about inside. Be sure that your video includes:

• a bit of info about yourself: your name, anything you’d like to share, where you were incarcerated, and when you were released
• why you care about COVID-19 in prison: your worries and fears about your friends getting seriously sick
• explicitly state that you plan to take the vaccine when it is offered to you, and why
• encourage your friends to do the same when the vaccine is offered to them
• express compassion and empathy for the concerns and uncertainty they may have and counter it with solid facts and with your love for them

Email me your video to aviramh at uchastings dot edu. I will display it prominently, with a little intro about the specific facility where you know people, here on the blog.

Thank you very much for your collaboration–let’s save as many lives as we can together. As Rabbi Hillel said almost two millennia ago: If I am not for me, who will be for me? And when I am for myself alone, what am I? And if not now, then when?

Remember this headline? You might have missed it, what with the onslaught of news and scandals. In mid-December, emails made public by the House committee overseeing the government’s pandemic response show that Paul Alexander—who was installed by President Trump in April to lead the HHS’ communications efforts—wrote to his higher-ups multiple times throughout June and July arguing that there is “no other way” to tackle Covid-19 except establishing “herd immunity” by allowing non-risk groups to expose themselves to the virus.

“Infants, kids, teens, young people, young adults, middle aged with no conditions etc. have zero to little risk,” wrote Alexander in a July 4 message to his boss, Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Michael Caputo, saying “we want them infected” to help “develop herd.”

Similarly, on July 24, Alexander wrote to the Food and Drug Administration’s Commissioner Stephen Hahn, Associated Commissioner for External Affairs John Wagner and numerous top HHS officials arguing that it “may be best to open up the flood zone and let the kids and young folk get infected.”

In the emails, Alexander also acknowledged that the Trump administration was aware its policies would increase the spread of Covid-19, urged HHS staff to release more “positive statements” in support of the administration’s pandemic response and cast blame on scientists like Dr. Anthony Fauci for offering less rosy assessments of the situation, accusing them of trying to “make the president look bad.”

The published emails don’t include the replies from Alexander’s supervisors to his guidance aside from a skeptical—“How can this be researched and proven true or false?”—written by Caputo in response to a claim made by Alexander about herd immunity on a cruise ship.

The HHS has previously disavowed herd immunity, with Secretary Alex Azar in October insisting it was “not the strategy of the U.S. government with regard to the coronavirus,” although the House watchdog pointed out that high-profile members of the administration on multiple occasions echoed the messaging promoted by Alexander soon after his emails were sent.

The agency drew a thick line between itself and Alexander in a Wednesday statement to Forbes, saying “his emails absolutely did not shape department strategy” and emphasizing that he was a “temporary Senior Policy Advisor to the Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs and is no longer employed at the Department.”

I’m quoting this because the idea of herd immunity by infection offers a useful, if grim, lens to look at the status of CDCR infections. Right now, CDCR has 6406 new confirmed cases in the past 14 days, and the overall infection number has risen to 41,449 cases–more than 40% of the entire prison population. All prisons have outbreaks, and 29 out of 36 prisons have serious outbreaks (more than 50 cases.) But in some prisons, the rate of infection is staggering. According to today’s data, eight prisons have had more than 60% of their population infected:

We chose 60% and above because estimates of the rate of infection necessary for herd immunity is estimated by experts to hover between 60% and 80%.

In case you are inclined to see this as good news, don’t. Here’s a primer from Johns Hopkins about herd immunity, which was written in April, when the current infection rates in the U.S. seemed horrendously farfetched. “As with any other infection,” they explain, “there are two ways to achieve herd immunity: A large proportion of the population either gets infected or gets a protective vaccine.” They go on to explain why the former option is not a good idea:

With some other diseases, such as chickenpox before the varicella vaccine was developed, people sometimes exposed themselves intentionally as a way of achieving immunity. For less severe diseases, this approach might be reasonable. But the situation for SARS-CoV-2 is very different: COVID-19 carries a much higher risk of severe disease and even death.

The death rate for COVID-19 is unknown, but current data suggest it is 10 times higher than for the flu. It’s higher still among vulnerable groups like the elderly and people with weakened immune systems. Even if the same number of people ultimately get infected with SARS-CoV-2, it’s best to space those infections over time to avoid overwhelming our doctors and hospitals. Quicker is not always better, as we have seen in previous epidemics with high mortality rates, such as the 1918 Flu pandemic.

 It would be tempting to juxtapose the Paul Alexander emails and the CDCR numbers and suggest that CDCR’s COVID-19 policy team have lifted their prevention strategy straight out of Trump’s playbook, but I think that assumes a much higher degree of premeditated planning than what is actually going on, which is chaos. Systemwide, the percentage of infections (more than 40%!) is staggering, but not at a high enough level to provide herd immunity for a minority of non-infected people; institution-wide, this means that CDCR’s explicit party line–transfers, rather than releases as its modus operandi–is likely to backfire spectacularly. Shifting people from places with fewer infections to places with more infections puts their lives in danger and risks transferring the new strain of COVID-19 before the vaccination plan is completed (I will post about how that’s going tomorrow, but for now just know that vaccinations are not underway in the worst outbreak sites and that the priority process raises serious concerns.) Shifting people from places with lots of infections to places with fewer infections, as the so-called “remedy” CDCR has fashioned for the San Quentin disaster, dilutes herd immunity and generates horrific outbreaks like the ones we’ve seen at Avenal, Folsom, SATF, CVSP and other facilities.

These problems are going to persist as long as CDCR willfully ignores the obvious solution: release aging, infirm people to the community, where they are safer for all of us.

Today, CDCR Secretary Kathleen Allison communicated excellent news. The letter above reads:

To All Loved Ones of Incarcerated Individuals and Valued External Stakeholders,

We have an important update in our response efforts against the COVID-19 pandemic. As most of you know, the vaccine has arrived in California, and it is safe and effective. The vaccine is being made available on a phased basis, and as a state, we are committed to a fair and equitable allocation and distribution process.

To that end, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) and California Correctional Health Care Services (CCHCS) will receive our first vaccines allocation as soon as this month, and we are currently working with our public health partners on a distribution plan. The initial focus will be on people at high risk of becoming infected or severely ill from COVID-19, as well as frontline workers.

We will have information on our website, and will update it regularly to ensure we are keeping everyone informed on these efforts.

CDCR and CCHCS have also sent out a similar communication to the incarcerated population and staff. We encourage everyone to accept the vaccine once they are eligible to receive it, and in accordance with the phased distribution approach. These collective efforts will set us on the path to recovery, and will allow us to reduce the risk of COVID-19 in our institutions, and safely reopen to in-person visiting, group programming, volunteering, and other opportunities.

If you have questions please email COVID19@cdcr.ca.gov. We are unable to address questions about specific individuals with this correspondence; however, we value your feedback and welcome your questions about the vaccine program and our COVID-19 response efforts.

In the meantime, we are continuing to ensure everyone is taking every precaution to ensure the safety and wellness of everyone who lives and works in our institutions. We are thankful to the families, friends and loved ones of our incarcerated population, as well as our stakeholders. Your hard work, dedication, and sacrifice this year has not been lost on us, and we are appreciative of all your efforts.

For more information on these response efforts, please visit the CDCR/CCHCS COVID response page. For more information about this project and the COVID-19 vaccine, visit this web page.

Take care of yourselves and take care of each other.

Kathleen Allison Clark Kelso

Secretary Receiver

I received the above in a format that did not have clickable links, but I assume the links take you here and here. I have many questions, which I will email to the above address tomorrow morning, including whether the vaccine is mandatory for staff, whether readiness/buy in questionnaires have been administered, and whether choice to vaccinate will be linked to incarceration conditions. I hope to provide updates soon.

Today we are hearing more rumblings about CDCR’s plans (irrespective of the Von Staich decision, they claim) to transfer elderly, infirm people between prisons.

Where are they going to transfer people to? The graph above, compiled by Chad Goerzen from CDCR data, depicts the rise in new cases just in the last few days. A third of the prison population has been infected so far; a tenth is currently infected; 97 people have died. As of today, twenty-three prisons have major outbreaks (more than 50 cases):

• CCI (156 new cases)
• CIW (64 new cases)
• CMC (180 new cases)
• LAC (795 new cases)
• SAC (115 new cases)
• SOL (129 new cases)
• CAC (367 new cases)
• CAL (154 new cases)
• CEN (419 new cases)
• CTF (799 new cases)
• HDSP (722 new cases)
• ISP (120 new cases)
• KVSP (505 new cases)
• MCSP (733 new cases)
• NKSP (208 new cases)
• PBSP (76 new cases) 
• PVSP (1,213 new cases)
• RJD (400 new cases)
• SVSP (83 new cases)
• SCC (248 new cases)
• SATF (593 new cases)
• VSP (368 new cases)

A change in strategy is long past due. But it looks like CDCR is taking a page out of Trump’s pandemic prevention playbook, flailing about, transferring people to and fro, hoping that this will go away and arguing in court that “there is no need to act hastily.”

What worries me about this is not just the immediate danger to people. The profound and understandable breakdown in trust between CDCR and the people in its care is going to be the Achilles’ heel of any vaccination strategy. It is essential to understand that releases and vaccinations must go hand in hand. I say this not only to CDCR officials, who might be thinking that the vaccine will obviate the need to release people, but also to activists who obstinately oppose the vaccines because they worry it will weaken the struggle for releases. Without the good will that only releases can create, not only will any vaccine intervention be ineffective, but the problems that fester in the system will increase its susceptibility to the next pandemic.

Incredible day: the Orange County Superior Court held today that the Orange County Sheriff, whose COVID-19 prevention incompetence was featured in Barnes v. Ahlman, violated the Eighth Amendment, and ordered the jail to reduce its population by 50%!

Here’s the decision in its entirety; summary follows.

20.12.11 Campbell Order by hadaraviram on Scribd

First, the bottom line: The specific petitioners in Campbell receive immediate relief, in the form of release or transfer. For everyone else, the court orders reductions of at least 50% in all dormitories–and if this is insufficient to achieve proper distancing, even further reductions.

The facts paint a horrible picture of the COVID experience at the jail. Not only is it impossible, given the conditions there, for people to socially distance, staff behavior is not monitored when they are away from the facility. Amazingly, staff are not tested unless they request it, even if they display symptoms. The staff is provided PPE but are not required to wear it. Housing decisions do not take medical vulnerability into account. None of these facts, which were backed by statements from medical experts and staff members, were contradicted by respondents with any evidence.

The decision is a pretty straightforward application of Von Staich, which in itself is a pretty straightforward application of Duvall. In other words: Petitioners showed evidence of incompetence accompanied by awareness of the danger to their lives + the Sheriff neglected to challenge the evidence => petitioners win.

I really hope this signals the beginning of the collapse of CDCR’s deceit machine about transfers; I want there to be court decisions in every single CDCR facility and county jail ordering 50% reductions. What we need is a more holistic understanding of the fact that there truly is nowhere to escape to–the entire COVID-19 prevention situation is broken beyond repair, and shifting people around won’t help.

There’s another way in which this matters for carceral permeability: so far, the meager releases from CDCR prisons have not been offset by transfers from jail because CDCR temporarily halted the transfers. The folly of having to obtain these decisions facility by facility is that, from CDCR’s standpoint, the population glut and resulting outbreaks in jails are invisible. This isn’t helped by the poor job BSCC is doing and the low credibility of their data (to the point that upstanding citizens like Berkeley law student Darby Aono have had to step up and collect data on their own.) But it should be obvious to CDCR that, sooner rather than later, the party will have to end, and the outbreaks in jails will require an exit door on that end. Shuffling folks around is not enough: something’s gotta give.

One of the often overlooked aspects of mass incarceration is that, as Erika Camplin puts it, “we as a nation are effectively feeding around 2 million mouths at least three times over each and every day.” Prison food has always been a problem; we even had a conference about it nine years ago. What I remember from the conference is that the CDCR nutritionist spoke on one of the panels and showed slides of prison meals that looked decent enough; under pressure from audience questions, however, she admitted that the slides were doctored, and then lashed out, “these people are monsters.” The rest of the panelists, most of whom were prison and jail doctors, immediately said, incensed, “that’s a lie.”

The pandemic has let things drop far beneath even that already low baseline. During the big outbreak in San Quentin, kitchen workers became infected and fell ill, which led, for several weeks, to serving the men an extra lunch in lieu of a hot dinner (to make up the missing calories.) We now learn from reports of people inside that the same, and worse, is happening at other institutions.

The email chain in the image above is making the rounds on Twitter; I don’t know who sent it around, but here is the text, reproduced. The printout is stamped as “Pelican Bay State Prison, Security Housing C-8.” The first email in the chain is from a Bryan Price to a Chad Parry, CC’ing a David Barneburg. I looked Barneburg up, and it looks like he’s Associate Warden at Pelican Bay. Price writes:

Hey Chad how’s your night going.

Well as for here, it’s not going to good. The inmate are starting to act out over the food and I don’t blame them. I thought when we cut one of their hot meals like dinner. In the past we have given them two lunches for dinner to make up for the calorie lost. Right now they got six crackers, two cookies, a small bag of pretzels, block of cheese and a drink mix. They also got 1 peanut butter, banana and a jalapeno. It is hard to believe that two of these lunches and the breakfast meal has the calories that is due to them. I the memo it states they will be getting box lunches with fruit, milk and juice.

So my question is, is this right because it does not seem right. The same lunch they saw this morning is the one they got for dinner. Hope there is something we can do. I think it’s going to get really bad really fast around here.

Any help in this matter would be greatly appreciated.

Out of the obvious awfulness of the whole thing, for some reason I find myself stuck on the mystery of the jalapeño. What is someone who can’t cook, and who has no access to vegetables, supposed to do with a single jalapeño? Is it cooked? Canned? Pickled? Frankly, I’m not sure the problem is only or even primarily the calories (snacks, peanut butter, and the “drink mix” probably pack a punch of calories)–the serious problem is the nutritional content, which seems sorely lacking.

Chad’s response:

Hey Bryan, that’s the correct meal. They were supposed to get the extra stuff you mentioned… not sure what is planned for tomorrow.

Kim, anything we can do to improve upon this meal? The fellas aren’t enjoying it much…

Thank you

Several family members and friends chimed in the relevant twitter thread. One person reported that she received a letter from someone at VSP who reported that “they are receiving 8 tablespoons of food per meal.”

I’m unsure whether this is garden variety incompetence or pandemic-related; the dinner shortage mentioned in the first email suggests the latter. This is pure conjecture, but the numbers of infected staff have shot up, which could explain kitchen worker shortage. I’m also unsure who leaked this printout; it features pretty feeble efforts to mask people’s names, but not their emails, so the names were easily readable.