Has the jail in your county vaccinated inmates? Here’s a list in the Kansas City area
Most jails in the Kansas City area have had opportunities for people who are incarcerated to get the COVID-19 vaccine.
More than 50% of the inmates at the Wyandotte County Detention Center were fully vaccinated, Capt. Kyle Harvey said.
That rate is higher than Wyandotte County itself, which is at about 38%, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Johnson County Detention Center began offering the vaccine in March. Since then, it has fully vaccinated 110 inmates and administered another 75 shots to people who began vaccination before they were booked in and needed their second dose, said Shelby Colburn, spokeswoman for the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office. The jail’s medical provider has the vaccine on hand.
The Jackson County Detention Center, which saw outbreaks last winter, vaccinated 104 inmates on April 15, according to Jackson County Sheriff Darryl Forté.
The jail is working with county officials on a second opportunity for inmates to receive vaccinations. It could be a single-day or multi-day clinic.
Similarly, the Platte County Detention Center held a vaccine clinic May 20 and is in discussions with the health department about coming back for more clinics, Maj. Erik Holland said.
The Shawnee County jail in Topeka began vaccinating inmates April 5. Since then, 113 Johnson & Johnson shots have been administered, deputy director Tim Phelps said.
The one-shot J&J option made more sense because the population can be transient, he said, making Pfizer and Moderna’s two shot regimens more logistically difficult.
The doses were provided for free by the Shawnee County Health Department.
Clay County
Clay County has not administered any doses in its detention center.
Sarah Boyd, spokeswoman for the Clay County Sheriff’s Office, said inmates coming into the jail are isolated for 10 days.
The jail, she said, was “not like in regular society, where you might constantly be encountering people who could be infected while out and about.”
However some experts say jails are high-risk areas for COVID-19 spread.
Jails have a high turnover rate of people going in and out as they are arrested and released. Also entering and leaving are corrections workers, contractors and health care staff.
Prisons and jails are higher risk settings because people live in a congregate environment.
“It’s incredibly important for the incarcerated individual because these spaces are extremely dangerous in terms of the potential for contracting COVID or any communicable disease,” said Forrest Behne, policy director with the COVID Prison Project.
“The other factor here is that offering vaccines to incarcerated individuals is extremely important for the communities in which these facilities exist.”
The number of cases in the Kansas City metropolitan area has spiked this month as the delta variant spreads and vaccination rates plateau. On Sunday, the metro added more than 260 new cases, bumping the seven-day rolling average to 411, according to data tracked by The Star. The average has not been this high since Feb. 4.
