Prisons have been overwhelmed by the virus
The Times has counted more than 40,000 coronavirus infections and 396 deaths in inmates and staff at state prisons, federal prisons and local jails. The country’s three largest known coronavirus clusters are in prisons that have more than 1,200 cases each.
Nearly every state prison system has at least one infection among either inmates or staff. Many of the infections have been asymptomatic, suggesting that the problem is more common than is understood. Fear and pessimism has settled in among inmates. Riots in Kansas and Washington State were led by inmates worried about contracting the coronavirus, prison officials said.
Inmates say that they have not been kept informed by prison administrators about correctional officers who have tested positive. That has left prisoners saying they feel especially vulnerable and also concerned that they might be infected and unwittingly passing the virus on to other inmates.
“You can’t really track it and know who had contact with who,” said Dennis McKeithan, a prison inmate in Pennsylvania. “The secrecy is making things more unsafe because people won’t be able to realize, ‘Oh, I had contact with that guy myself,’ and then go ahead and get tested.”
During interviews with more than two dozen inmates across the nation, prisoners say that correctional facilities are responding to the crisis far too slowly. At Wyoming Correctional Facility in Attica, N.Y., Tracy White, 30, said that only workers on the serving line in the prison’s mess hall are required to wear masks covering their nose and mouth.
“A lot of people are nervous, tense, scared,” Mr. White said.
Social distancing, he said, is impossible. Beds are placed three feet apart. As Mr. White spoke over a prison telephone, he said another inmate was on another phone less than two feet away. He said he had cleaned the phone as best as he could, but that he was also wearing a sock on his hand to protect himself from germs.
Elijah McDowell, an inmate in Connecticut, said the sweep of coronavirus through his prison -- including the death of several inmates -- had made a bleak existence even more grim.
“Every day is nerve-racking,” he said. “I already have to fight things every day, but fighting the coronavirus, it’s not a fair fight because they keep us in the dark about a lot of things.”
At Cook County Jail in Chicago, where nearly 1,000 inmates and staff have been infected, Antonio House said he washed his hands regularly and tried to be as sanitary as possible in order to stay healthy. But he said the strain of being unable to maintain six feet of distance from guards and other inmates who do not always wear masks was at times overwhelming.
“Mentally, it’s rough,” said Mr. House, 45. “It’s scary. I’m fearful because I don’t know how my body will respond if I catch it.”
Several days after the interview, LaSheda Brooks -- who is Mr. House’s daughter -- said her father had contracted the coronavirus. He is currently recovering, she said.
Cases, deaths continue to mount around Chicago
As some major cities have seen their cases decline, new infections have remained stubbornly high around Chicago. More than 35,000 people in the city have been infected and more than 1,600 have died. Add in the suburbs, and those numbers more than double.
Chicago’s mayor, Lori Lightfoot, said recently that many in her city had defied orders to stay home and hosted large house parties that the police have had to break up. After watching the plight of New York City, Ms. Lightfoot was taking a cautious approach to eventually reopening her city.
“People are itching to get outside,” Ms. Lightfoot said on Twitter. “Businesses are looking at creative ways to serve customers. The key is how we do it.”
Across the Midwest, where both large metros and small meatpacking cities have been hit hard, frustration with stay-at-home orders has grown. In South Dakota, the governor threatened legal action against two Native American tribes that installed checkpoints on highways leading into their reservations. In Ohio, where protesters have also called for business to resume, Gov. Mike DeWine has faced pressure from fellow Republicans to hasten his state’s reopening. And in Minnesota, some Republicans pressed the Democratic governor to further ease some restrictions.
“We should open all outdoor campgrounds for all campers or RVs,” said State Senator Paul Gazelka, who leads the Republican majority in the Minnesota Senate. “Keep public facilities closed, and encourage people to keep to their own families.”
Mr. Gazelka also suggested that patio dining at restaurants should resume.
Black and Hispanic Americans face worse health outcomes
Across much of the country, African-Americans and Hispanics have been infected with the coronavirus at disproportionate rates. In Illinois, officials said recently that about 60 percent of Hispanic people who were tested for the virus were positive, three times the average for other Illinoisans.
“While we can’t fix generations of disparities in the span of a few months, we must advance equity in our public health response,” said Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, who said longstanding “obstacles for members of our Latino communities are now amplified in this pandemic.”
Read more here about the challenges Hispanic Americans have faced during the pandemic.
In Louisiana, where about one-third of residents are black, 56 percent of coronavirus patients who died have been African-American. In Michigan, where less than 15 percent of residents are black, about 40 percent of those who died from the virus have been. In South Dakota, where about 7 percent of residents are black or Hispanic, 39 percent of coronavirus patients are members of those groups.
“Race and place are major predictors of underlying health conditions and health outcomes,” said Matías Valenzuela of the public health agency in Seattle and King County, Wash., where black people have been infected at twice the rate of white people.
But a full national picture of the racial impact was clouded by uneven reporting across states and counties. In many places, racial data for a large percentage of patients was unavailable, potentially skewing results. Other states provided no racial data.
In California, where early reports suggested that the impact of the virus was spread at roughly proportional rates across racial groups, state officials eventually issued a statement saying that black people were being hit harder there, too.
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