The long wait for COVID-19 vaccines in Pennsylvania's prisons is almost over. 

Thousands of inmates and staff are expected to get their doses in the coming weeks now that Pennsylvania has opened eligibility up to both groups, Spotlight PA reports. All corrections employees were made eligible on March 31. Imprisoned people were made eligible on Monday. 

The doses will provide unprecedented protection in some of the most outbreak-susceptible conditions imaginable, with up to four people housed in cells the size of a bathroom. Between March 2020 and January 2021, nearly one in five Pennsylvania prisoners contracted the illness.

Claire Shubik-Richards, executive director of the Pennsylvania Prison Society, called the wholesale arrival of vaccines in Pennsylvania prisons a "turning point in the pandemic."

THE CONTEXT: At least 11 out of 23 Pennsylvania state prison facilities have already vaccinated people living and working inside. That’s almost four times the number of prisons that were distributing the vaccine in February. 

But there are lingering questions about data transparency, how prisons will handle the side effects of mass inoculations, and how they'll counter the continued spread of vaccine misinformation inside prison walls.

An incentive program was rolled out by Pennsylvania's Department of Corrections earlier this year, offering money to inmates who get their shots — an attempt by officials to overcome vaccine hesitancy and entrenched distrust. That effort yielded promising results, with two prisons reporting participation rates in excess of 70%. 

But the nationwide numbers are less encouraging, with prison populations in two-thirds of states still lagging the general population for access despite the CDC urging the opposite approach, The Marshall Project reports.