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As COVID Rages On Rikers, Staffing Crisis Delays Vaccine Mandate For Jail Staff
By
Jake Offenhartz
Published Oct 21, 2021
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Seth Wenig/AP/Shutterstock
By
Jake Offenhartz
Published Oct 21, 2021
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Bellevue Hospital, once the site of makeshift morgues and dire equipment shortages, is now home to the city’s highest COVID-19 vaccination rates among public hospital workers. As of last week, 97% of employees had received at least one shot, a testament to the power of the statewide vaccine mandate for health care employees.
But that vaccine coverage only applies to clinicians and medical support inside New York City’s most renowned public hospital. On the building’s 19th floor, dozens of correction officers stand guard over a prison ward, where acutely ill detainees from Rikers Island and anyone else in city custody are sent for treatment. Frequently, according to multiple medical sources inside of Bellevue, maskless correction officers are seen posted outside COVID patients’ rooms. And unlike everyone else on the floor, they are not currently required to be vaccinated.
The loophole, which has frustrated health care workers for weeks, will soon be closed, as part of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s newly announced vaccine requirement for all government workers. As the city prepares to implement the sweeping policy, health care workers say their experience in the prison ward underscores the urgency of the mandate — as well as the steep challenges the city might face in forcing its carceral employees to get the shot.
“There are several patients who are hospitalized with COVID, and you have potentially unvaccinated COs interacting with them then assisting other patients,” said one medical staffer, who works with incarcerated people on both Rikers Island and the Bellevue ward. “These guys can be vectors [carriers] for the disease.”
As of October 15th, city data showed 51% percent of Department of Correction employees had received one shot of the vaccine, the lowest rate among all city agencies. But while the mandate will require nearly all municipal workers to get their first dose on October 29th, uniformed correctional officers working inside the city’s jails have a separate deadline of December 1st.
But at a moment when COVID transmission on Rikers Island is nearing a pandemic peak, some elected officials and public health experts have questioned the logic of delaying a vaccine requirement for jail staff another six weeks.
The belated implementation comes as a concession to correction officers, who have taken advantage of a generous sick leave policy to stop showing up for work en masse. According to Correction Commissioner Vince Schiraldi, the widespread absenteeism has meant that entire units are left unsupervised, leading to skyrocketing violence and self-harm on Rikers.
“We have to weigh the effects of mandatory inoculations against the loss of staff and the attendant problems that brings with it, and those have been pretty severe,” Schiraldi said during a Board of Correction hearing on Tuesday.
While praising de Blasio for the sweeping mandate, Councilman Keith Powers, who chairs the criminal justice committee, said he was “confused” by the decision to push back the correction officers deadline. “As we put people into crowded cells, to me there's an added urgency to make sure we get everyone in our city's jails vaccinated.”
On Friday, Victor Mercado, a 64-year-old Bronx man, became the 13th person to die this year in city custody. He is believed to have died of COVID-19, after contracting the disease inside the Rikers infirmary, according to his lawyer.
“People who are incarcerated are, like nursing home patients, unable to choose which officers or civilian staff they interact with and under what circumstances,” said the medical staffer. “It’s hard to justify allowing correction officers extra time to make a decision that health staff, teachers and others had to make a month ago.”
The combination of the pandemic and operational dysfunction has also left roughly a quarter of the jail’s detainees in some form of quarantine because of exposure to the coronavirus. The mandatory isolation period has blocked them from accessing court dates, slowing the city’s efforts to reduce the jail’s population.
Despite the COVID designations, detainees have told WNYC/Gothamist that correction officers frequently move between housing units, while disregarding protocols meant to slow the spread of the virus. (Multiple inquiries to the Department of Correction were not returned.)
In a statement, a spokesperson for the correction officers union said they would push back against the mandate, noting that “any changes in the terms and conditions of their employment that relates to their health and safety are mandatory subjects of collective bargaining.” The group’s president, Benny Boscio, publicly declared he is unvaccinated earlier this month.
De Blasio voiced no concern on Wednesday about a possible legal challenge brought by unions against his full mandate, noting that a similar requirement for school staff survived a lawsuit from teacher unions. A temporary restraining order brought state correctional officers against Governor Kathy Hochul’s mandate for health care workers was also tossed by a judge last month.
Vaccine mandates have more than a century of legal precedent and are typically upheld as long as they don’t violate religious or medical protections.
Asked to explain the discrepancy in timing for correction officers, the mayor said he was hopeful that the current staffing issues on Rikers Island could be solved by December 1st — the same month that he leaves office.
“We're staggering it a little bit to achieve a very particular goal in a very particular setting,” de Blasio said. “There's no place with quite the same conditions as a jail system.”
Jake Offenhartz
Jake Offenhartz is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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