Editorial: More access means more vaccines?

Some things are just so obvious that it seems ridiculous they weren’t recognized sooner.

The wheel. Fire. French fries and slaw on a corned beef sandwich. How did it take human beings so long to figure out what was right in front of them?

Now there’s one in Westmoreland County.

On Monday, Warden Bryan Kline said Wexford Health Services Inc., the county prison’s medical provider, has been granted permission to administer covid-19 vaccinations. Officials see this as a potential way to increase the vaccination rate for county inmates.

That is great. It also is blatantly obvious. If the vaccine is available every day, clearly there are exponentially more opportunities for people to roll up a sleeve.

Until now, the vaccine has been available. It has just been in clinics held every six weeks with vaccine provided by an area pharmacy. The two-dose Pfizer vaccine has been offered.

The problem with that? Not everyone is in jail for six weeks or more. Many inmates have turned down the vaccine because they didn’t anticipate being around for the second dose. That makes sense as inmates might be behind bars for just the few days between arrest and preliminary hearing or until bail can be arranged.

It prompts another obvious issue. Pfizer- BioNTech’s schedule recommends the injections be given three weeks apart, not six. Why were the vaccine clinics not being scheduled twice as often?

That notwithstanding, the county has been offering inmate vaccinations since at least May. In April, county commissioners talked about plans to offer the vaccines in exchange for $25 of commissary credit. Six months later, there are only 25% of inmates vaccinated — although the rotating nature of the prison population has to be taken into account with that figure.

But researchers have found that incentives haven’t worked as well as some have hoped when it comes to vaccines, with even the big lottery prizes offered by some states including neighboring Ohio and West Virginia not really pushing increases.

What could make a real difference is access. It is nice to see that this new shift will make every inmate able to get the vaccine regardless of how much time they will spend as guests of the county.