The Legal Aid Society condemned the Cuomo Administration for temporarily suspending vaccination efforts for people incarcerated in New York prisons, as reported by Gothamist

The suspension follows public health concerns over the Johnson and Johnson one-shot vaccine – and leaves vulnerable people in state prisons without the ability to gain protection from the COVID-19 virus.

Sophie Gebreselassie, an attorney with The Legal Aid Society, urged state officials to rethink the supply and administration issues that have plagued the vaccination of prisons for months. So far only 21% of people incarcerated in state prisons have received at least one shot of a COVID-19 vaccine, and only about one in 10 have been fully vaccinated.

“People in the community can choose which vaccine to get and have the option to go to different providers,” Gebreselassie said. “People in prison are at the whim of DOCCS. [The state] needs to develop a plan for these sorts of pauses or supply issues that I imagine could come up over the next several months and the next rounds of vaccines.”