COVID behind bars

So here we are: masked, socially distanced, tending our sourdough starters. We are tracking the numbers: tested, infected, dead. We are tracking the phased, opening-up policies of our states: when can we get our teeth cleaned, our hair cut?

Meanwhile, in an alternate universe, 2.3 million people whose everyday lives are all about quarantine because they are serving time in jails and prisons, are getting sick.

At the end of last week, at least 20,119 people in prison had tested positive for COVID-19, a 39 percent increase from the week before.

The increase—and this is really just the beginning—is the result of the nature of the virus itself. (It is highly contagious and can be spread by asymptomatic people.) And it is the result of more aggressive and widespread testing within prisons. (A handful of states, including Ohio, Tennessee, Arkansas, Michigan, North Carolina began testing nearly everyone in prisons where people had become sick. The tests are coming back positive, hundreds of them.) And it is the result of the conditions within jails and prisons. (Not just overcrowded but populated by people who are less healthy with more “comorbidities” than the rest of us.)

Here’s what a report from The Marshall Project had to say: Unless the COVID-19 infections can be brought under control in jails and prisons, there is every reason to believe the outside (italics, mine) population will keep getting exposed to the virus as people in prison cycle back into society and as employees come home after being exposed to the virus. Only 11 states are releasing any data about how many prison staff workers have tested positive for COVID-19. Marshall calculated 6,100 prison and jail workers have tested positive for the coronavirus and at least 22 died. That, in all likelihood, is an underestimate of the actual number.

Here in my state, the first person who tested positive inside Oregon State Penitentiary (OSP) was a guard on one of the cell blocks. Last week, the DOC (Department of Corrections) reported 51 inmate cases in the state with 18 at OSP).

Today the report is 101 positives with 68 at OSP.