One year into the pandemic, COVID-19 case rates among prison inmates were four times highter than the general public’s, and the death rate was more than twice as high. Yet many state vaccine policies left incarcerated individuals far behind other citizens or made their priority unclear in official policies. In our reporting for “Inmates’ Access to Vaccines Varies Widely by State,” my colleague and I chased updates on constantly changing state vaccine policies until moments before our piece was published.
