Ira Goldberg was terrified of dying in prison. In panicked phone calls in the days before he caught the coronavirus at Woodbourne Correctional Facility, his attorney described the 72-year-old Brooklyn man with a visceral terror in his voice that reminded her of the Blair Witch Project.
“He was legitimately very scared for his life and deeply concerned that the prison seemed to have no idea what they were doing as the virus spread,” said Alexandra Mitter, a lawyer for the Center of Appellate Litigation.
Mitter had been trying to broker Goldberg’s early release for months. He was serving a minimum of seven years for stealing expensive camera equipment from a store in SoHo and was up for parole in 2022. But he was in poor health. Legal papers filed in July describe Goldberg’s chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, emphysema, asthma, chronic renal failure, and high blood pressure--all conditions that carry a higher risk for severe COVID-19 consequences.
“A death sentence for a 72-year-old man who took photography equipment from a few open stores is prohibited by the state and federal prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishment,” Mitter wrote. Goldberg died in a Garnett Health Medical Center on a ventilator on January 4th.
Mitter is one of many putting public pressure on the state to expand vaccine eligibility to those in incarceration. On Thursday, two men being held on Rikers Island filed a lawsuit in State Supreme Court arguing that the state’s rules allowing immunizations for residents of other congregate settings— nursing homes, shelters and long-term care facilities— while excluding incarcerated people is “arbitrary and capricious.” Last week, another group of legal advocates wrote a letter to the Governor Andrew Cuomo and Health Commissioner Howard Zucker over this issue.
The Rikers lawsuit argues all people in prisons and jails across the state should be given access to vaccines, in accordance with guidance from the American Medical Association, which recommends prioritizing correction officers and inmates, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which says both groups should be vaccinated at the same time. Corrections Officers are currently eligible for vaccination under state guidance.
City jails started vaccinating people aged 65 and older on January 6th reaching 267 people with one dose and 169 people with two doses of the currently authorized vaccines. Correctional health officials have been urging the state to include its jails and prisons under the banner of congregate settings, so they can administer vaccines to the rest of the jail’s population.
“State approval is required to offer vaccine to all persons in our care,” said Jeanette Merrill, a spokesperson for the city’s Correctional Health Services.
Dr. Denis Nash, an epidemiology professor at CUNY called it “unconscionable” that the state was prohibiting these vaccinations in its prisons while city jails are otherwise greenlit for vaccination.
“Congregate settings are at very heightened risk for uncontrolled SARS-CoV-2 outbreaks, as nearly all such settings (save high functioning and well-resourced hospitals) are ill-equipped and don't have the infection control capacity for early detection and containment of these outbreaks,” he said.
But while the public health is guidance is clear, elected officials have faced political backlash at times for following expert advice. In state prisons, not even the 1,100 incarcerated people over the age of 65 have been offered vaccinations, even as outbreaks continue to flourish across a dozen facilities. State records note 500 new infections in these prisons since January 21st. Even after a court ordered New York officials to vaccinate one older inmate with chronic lung issues on January 18th, the state has still not complied.
More than a dozen states are vaccinating inmates, including New York’s neighbors Delaware, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Earlier this week, a federal judge in Oregon ordered that state begin vaccinating incarcerated people immediately in a similar case, where the state’s Corrections Department was allowing vaccinations in some congregate settings but not prisons.
New York’s Corrections Department has repeatedly said it’s “working with the [State Health Department] to develop a plan,” to vaccinate incarcerated people.
“Every facet of the state’s response to the COVID-19 outbreak has been guided by facts, scientific data, and the guidance of public health experts at NYS DOH and the CDC,” said Thomas Mailey, a spokesperson for the Corrections Department. The State’s Health Department and the Governor’s Office didn’t return requests for comment right away.
Goldberg, the man incarcerated for stealing camera equipment, caught the virus in mid-December, when an outbreak spread through Woodburne like wildfire, sickening more than 200 men in a month.
His illness arrived just as the first New Yorkers were receiving doses of the vaccine. He was one of twelve incarcerated people to die from COVID-19 and nearly 3,000 inmates who caught the virus across the state since the vaccine rollout began for the public outside the confines of prison walls. The Corrections Department declined to comment on his death citing confidentiality rules.
“He made it very close to the finish line,” his attorney Mitter said, though she added. “If he were still here, he still wouldn’t be getting the vaccine.”
