Jails struggle to get vaccines for people in custody With multiple outbreaks in Maine jails and vaccine supplies trickling in from the state, some jails are seeking doses from health care providers in their communities. Share Even though people held in jails or prisons are eligible for COVID-19 vaccines, the Maine Department of Corrections has been slow to get doses to county jails, so much so that some have looked to other options to get shots in arms. Corrections officers were eligible for vaccines starting in January. But while federal guidance said incarcerated people should be vaccinated at the same time as the officers, Maine didn’t begin offering vaccines to the oldest people in state prisons until last month. Just 284 of roughly 1,600 people in prisons, about 18 percent, had been vaccinated as of April 9, the most recent number provided by the state.