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– One in five state and federal inmates in the US has tested positive for the coronavirus, a percentage more than four times that of the general population. According to data collected by the AP and the Marshall Project, more than half of prisoners are infected in some states. As the pandemic enters its 10th month – and the first Americans receive a COVID-19 vaccine – at least 275,000 inmates have been infected, more than 1,700 have died, and the spread of the virus behind bars shows no signs of slowing down. New cases in prisons this week hit their highest levels since the tests began in the spring, far ahead of previous peaks in April and August. “That number is a huge under-figure,” said Homer Venters, former Chief Medical Officer at Rikers Island Prison in New York. He has conducted more than a dozen court-ordered COVID-19 prison inspections across the country. “I still run into prisons and prisons where people who get sick are not only not tested but also not given care. So they get much sicker than they need to,” he said.
Now the rollout of vaccines poses difficult decisions for politicians and policymakers. Because the virus is spreading behind bars, prisoners cannot socialize and depend on the state for their safety. Donte Westmoreland, 26, was recently released from the Lansing Correctional Facility in Kansas, where he contracted the virus while on a marijuana charge. About 5,100 inmates have been infected in Kansas prisons, the third highest in the country, after South Dakota and Arkansas. “It was as if I had been sentenced to death,” said Westmoreland. He lived with more than 100 virus-infected men in an open dormitory, where he woke up regularly to see men lying sick on the floor who couldn’t get up, he said. “People are dying in front of me from this virus,” he said. “It’s the scariest sight.” Westmoreland was sweating, shivering in bed until he recovered six weeks later. “If we want to end this pandemic – lowering infection rates, lowering death rates, lowering ICU occupancy rates – we need to address infection rates in correctional facilities,” said Emily Wang, a professor at the Yale School of Medicine. (New Jersey released 2,200 inmates in one day.)