Initially granted a reprieve, California prison guards are now facing a mid-January deadline to get vaccinated against COVID-19 after two months of delay.
Although the state’s prison guard’s union is appealing the mandate, U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar in Oakland ultimately refused to delay enforcement on Wednesday.
The original order, passed in September by Tigar, required corrections officers to get vaccinated against the virus to better protect inmates, removing the option for unvaccinated employees to opt for twice-weekly testing instead.
Tigar said at the time of the September ruling, "mandatory staff vaccination policy would lower the risk of preventable death and serious medical consequences among incarcerated persons. And no one has identified any remedy that will produce anything close to the same benefit."
At the time of the ruling, 50,000 people incarcerated in California state prisons had been infected with COVID-19, said Tigar. At least 240 had died, as well as 39 prison staff.
"Every day hundreds of people go in and out of prison," said Professor Hadar Aviram with UC Hastings College of the Law. "Primarily the people who work in prison and if there’s no good gatekeeping inside and if people are not vaccinated or testing regularly, there’s no way to regulate it."
There has been pushback, in October a Kern County Superior Court judge blocked prison workers from being included in the mandate.
The California Correctional Peace Officers Association, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and Gov. Gavin Newsom are appealing the mandate, arguing that if guards are required to get vaccinated, some may quit.
But that shouldn’t even be an argument to make, Aviram said.
"If we don’t have enough people working as prison guards, that actually respect and care for the population they’re entrusted with enough to get vaccinated and care for their lives, maybe we just cannot incarcerate this many people," said Aviram
While the union has requested the order be put on hold during the appeal process, that request has been denied.
"This Court has determined that its mandatory vaccination order is required to protect the constitutional rights of persons incarcerated by the State of California, and that Plaintiffs face a substantial risk of serious harm, including serious illness and death, in the absence of a vaccine mandate," said Tigar in the Wednesday ruling.
Guards have until Jan. 12 to get vaccinated.
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