(Newser)
– One in five US state and federal prisoners tested positive for coronavirus, four times the rate of the general population. In some states, more than half of detainees have been infected, according to data collected by the PA and the Marshall Project. As the pandemic enters its 10th month – and as the first Americans receive a COVID-19 vaccine – at least 275,000 prisoners have been infected, more than 1,700 have died, and the spread of the virus behind bars shows no signs. of slowing down. This week, new cases in prisons have reached their highest level since tests began in the spring, far exceeding previous peaks in April and August. “That’s a very small number,” said Homer Venters, a former chief medical officer at Rikers Island Prison in New York. He has conducted more than a dozen COVID-19 prison inspections ordered by courts across the country. “They still encounter prisons and prisons where, when people get sick, not only are they not tested, but they don’t get care. So they get sick a lot more than they should,” he said.
Now, the launch of vaccines is a difficult decision for politicians and decision-makers. As the virus spreads behind bars, detainees cannot distance themselves socially and are dependent on the state for their safety. Donte Westmoreland, 26, was recently released from the Lansing Correctional Facility in Kansas, where he caught the virus while serving time on a marijuana charge. About 5,100 prisoners became infected in Kansas prisons, the third-highest rate in the country, behind South Dakota and Arkansas. “It was like I was sentenced to death,” Westmoreland said. He lived with more than 100 men infected with the virus in an open home, where he regularly woke up to find sick men on the floor, unable to get up, he said. “People actually die in front of me because of this virus,” he said. “It’s the scariest sight.” Westmoreland was sweating, trembling in bed, until he recovered six weeks later. “If we are to end this pandemic – reduce infection rates, reduce death rates, reduce ICU occupancy rates – we need to address infection rates in correctional facilities,” said Emily Wang, a professor at Yale School of Medicine. (New Jersey released 2,200 inmates in one day.)