Inmates receive COVID-19 vaccine at Worcester County Jail

WORCESTER, Mass. — This week, inmates at Massachusetts prison and jail inmates became eligible to receive the first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine.

Yet, many are not signing up.

At the Worcester County Jail and House of Correction, the facility began distributing the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine on Friday.

Derrick Pitt of Middletown, Connecticut is the first inmate at the Worcester County Jail and House of Correction to receive a Covid-19 shot.

“It felt great! No reactions. It felt like a little pinch, that’s all,” Pitt told me.

Derrick Pitt is one of nearly 300 Worcester County inmates who will receive the first Covid-19 shot over the next two weeks.

That’s only half the inmate population.

The others have so far refused to sign up.

Derrick, though, is glad he did.

“It’s about life. And the value of life. I value lives a lot. People out there are dying. I don’t want to be one of the statistics,” Pitt said.

Since the Covid-19 pandemic struck, the Worcester County Jail and House of Correction’s infection rate has been low, about 50 staff and 50 inmates testing positive during all of 2020.

Now the vaccine is being made available.

The sheriff hopes the low Covid rate, together with the availability of the vaccine, will demonstrate that inmates at the facility are safe.

And he hopes inmates who opted out, will change their minds.

“There have been a lot of inmates who said they are not interested, they changed their minds. I think the inmates who got the vaccine will go back and talk. One thing you have in a correctional facility is a lot of time,” Worcester County Sheriff Lewis Evangelidis said.

Christian Millett was an early holdout, but now he is the second inmate to get a Covid-19 shot at Worcester County.

At first, I was nervous about getting (the shot). And then, I thought about the bigger picture, I changed my mind,” Millett said.

“I’m just grateful I’m getting the shot,” Millett added. “It helps me and it helps everybody else from getting sick.”

It will take about two weeks to get this first dose of the Covid-19 shot to all of the inmates who signed up at the Worcester jail.

If reluctant inmates change their mind, there should be enough vaccine for all of the inmates who request it.

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