Let¶¶Ņõap get our vaccination priorities straight
Editorās note: While the Colorado Department of Health created vaccination priority guidelines, Gov. Jared Polis has since stated that prisoners should be vaccinated according to their risk-level the same as the general public.
Re: āElderly deserve spot at front of line,ā Nov. 29 commentary
George Brauchlerās column advocating against vaccinating prisoners makes sense as far as it goes. Certainly, older people who have not committed crimes are more deserving of a vaccine than prison inmates.
This point of view, however, leaves out one important group: prison staff. These are the people charged with keeping prisoners in prison, where the rest of us are safe from them, and with making sure that prisoners are treated in a way that conforms to our laws and standards.
It takes a lot of staff to run a prison, and most of that staff spends a good part of their workday in close contact with inmates, especially correctional officers, medical staff and food service staff. These people already work in more dangerous conditions than most of us, and the dangers of the current pandemic just add to those.
At present, institutions are one of the major breeding grounds for coronavirus. Most of those staff members, like Brauchler, have family they love: parents, brothers, sisters, children, all of whom deserve some protection.
Vaccinating prisoners will provide at least a little protection and peace of mind to these people and to their families.
Peter Elkon, Wheat Ridge
I am an 84-year-old female with a heart problem. If Gov. Jared Polis continues with the plan to give the COVID-19 vaccinations to the incarcerated before other at-risk Coloradans, I will be shocked and disappointed.
At the very least, only the incarcerated who are elderly and at-risk should be prioritized ahead of me. I realize there will be a limited quantity of the vaccine, which increases my distress over this possible distribution.
Sally Reed, Parker
There are good reasons to follow the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment recommendations to place DOC prisoners at the top of Phase 2 for the vaccine.
Besides being at extreme risk due to their close conditions and extended lockdown, vaccinated inmates would offer excellent data collection opportunities because of controlled and closely monitored conditions at Colorado prison facilities. We could learn so much from them and avoid the stateās long-term costly consequences of this otherwise rampant disease in DOC facilities.
Regardless of the district attorneyās heartless attitude and short-sightedness expressed in The Denver Post recently, tracking COVID-19 health-related issues among vaccinated inmates and parolees over time would be possible, whereas practically impossible in other populations.
Judith Harrington, Palmer Lake
George Brauchler reached a new low and the beginning of the political posturing over priority in who gets the COVID-19 vaccine.
My husband and I are both in the high-risk category as seniors and with compromised health but we have choices in how we expose ourselves to infection. We can self-isolate, determine with whom we come in contact and seek medical care when necessary. That is not true of the inmates in our state prisons and jails.
Rather than use the example of some of the more notorious inmates, Brauchler does not address the staff in these institutions, the risks they face every day and the impossibility of social distancing in many cases. There have already been major outbreaks in several jails as well as the immigration detention center.
We must have confidence in the public health experts and not politicize the distribution of the vaccine.
Patricia Gilman, Denver
People are people. We are not going to do a āmoral purity testā to see who gets a COVID-19 vaccine first.
When Gov. Polis prioritizes Colorado prisons, he is actually targeting an elderly population (and their guards) in confined quarters where there is a virus hot spot.
I am 70 and want nurses and doctors to go first, prisons and nursing homes may follow.
I and other seniors will get ours in due course. Be a good citizen, wait your turn, and donāt start a dog fight over this.
Susan Williams, Lakewood
Re: āPolis: Inmates should wait,ā Dec. 2 news story
The governorās proposal to put prisoner inmates last on the COVID-19 waiting list, while politically expedient, is morally reprehensible. Inmates are already paying their debt to society by being in prison. They should not have to further pay by being the last in line for a vaccine, particularly since prisons have a very high risk for contagion.
We have seen this throughout the country at various other prisons where the infection rates are catastrophic. Inmates still have fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution. They too have families and loved ones.
Please do the right thing and prioritize prison inmates higher up on the list for the COVID-19 vaccines.
Jim Seely, Erie
Wait-and-see approach to Bidenās unifying attempts
Re: āBiden won and now must plot moderate course,ā Nov. 29 commentary
President-elect Joe Biden is being applauded for taking a tone of unity in his transition into office. In Krista Kaferās column, he is quoted as saying he promises āto be a president who seeks not to divide, but to unify.ā He goes on to say that our opponents are not our enemies, they are Americans.
Well he could have fooled me. In the final six months of the campaign, Biden and his team have been telling me that President Donald Trump is not only the enemy but also a liar, a cheater and is not to be trusted. And, they spent literally hundreds of millions of dollars in media messaging laying the blame for 250K COVID deaths primarily at the feet of President Trump.
President-elect Biden and his teamās words on unity have no credibility. They should just focus on actions and real work to bring this country together.
Kevin Payne, Denver
Make a bipartisan effort
Krista Kafer writes about how Biden must be moderate in his approach and not listen to the extreme left of the Democratic party. She goes further to say that he should not seek retribution for the past four years in the interest of healing the country. Then she writes, āWe donāt have to accept his policy prescriptions; indeed we should fight most of them, but we must accept the results of the election.ā
Yes, we should accept the results of the election. Yes, we donāt have to agree with his policies. But to say, āwe should fight most of them (policies),ā is obstructionism! Kafer, do you hear yourself? You should be pleading for bipartisanship, and a good start would be for the Republican senators to remove Moscow Mitch as their majority leader.
Jeff Cole, Englewood
Fact is, theyāre all lies
It is long past time The Denver Post and other media stop referring to President Trumpās statements as āmisleading,ā āunsubstantiated,ā āmisstatements,ā or āfalsehoods.ā The flat fact is Trump has mired our country in this mess through endless lies.
According to an Oct. 22 Washington Post story, Trump was averaging more than 50 (lies) each day. In June, the paper calculated he had (lied) 19,127 times in 1,226 days.
If there is any honesty in journalism, it¶¶Ņõap long past time to call the president exactly what he is: A liar, liar pants on fire.
Kate Forgach, Fort Collins
Ready to see chaos end
Re: āIn 46-minute video, Trump oļ¬ers unsubstantiated voter fraud charges,ā Dec. 3 news story
Iām appalled and upset about the speech of our president who seems to be under the delusion he won the 2020 election. To undermine the faith in a free and fair election with unsubstantiated widespread voter fraud claims is dangerous, especially coming from the president himself, because it undermines the very cornerstone of our democracy, which I, as a veteran, had been sworn to defend. The result can be chaos and widespread unrest, especially where the election was very close.
My hope is that coming Jan. 20, 2021, the toxic and chaotic political and social environment of the out-going administration under Trumpās leadership is finally ending in our country with the voters clearly consigning them to the dustbin of history at last.
A new era of political civility and bipartisan cooperation will hopefully emerge and become the norm again with the incoming administration to begin the healing process of our country in order to most effectively confront those many pressing issues at hand in our country and those around the world, among them certainly are the coronavirus pandemic and man-made contributions to global climate changes.
Rudi Florian, Denver
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