I am greatly dismayed to learn, through Staff Writer Megan Gray’s March 4 article “State says people in jails and prisons will have to keep waiting for vaccines,” that the state of Maine still does not have a plan for vaccinating people who are incarcerated.

Incarcerated people have the right to safe, timely, quality health care. They have the same humanity as the rest of us. Persons who are incarcerated are someone’s son or daughter or brother or sister or spouse. They have people who love and care about them.

I don’t understand this bias that some are more worthy as humans than others to receive basic health care. But that is exactly what the state is saying with its current rollout of the vaccine. This is evidenced by the fact that the state does not appear to have a plan to vaccinate eligible incarcerated people and is not even following the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines for congregate settings like the prison!

Incarcerated people have many rights severely limited, but the right to health care should never be one of them. That is inhumane, immoral and unethical.

I call on Gov. Mills to immediately create a fair, humane and timely plan to vaccinate those who are incarcerated!

Holly Reid
Bath