Fast, frequent, and widespread: COVID-19 outbreaks inside federal prisons
Over the course of the pandemic, nearly 50,000 people in federal prisons have been infected with COVID-19, and at least 256 people have died after testing positive. As studies have shown, the rates of infection and mortality in federal prisons — like in state prisons, ICE detention centers, and other carceral settings — have been much higher than the overall rates in the United States throughout the pandemic.
We conducted a deeper analysis of the pandemic inside federal prisons and identified several alarming patterns behind these numbers: across the federal prison system, outbreaks have been frequent and wide-reaching. After being first detected inside facilities, these outbreaks have also spread extremely quickly.
A crisis of undertesting: how inadequate COVID-19 detection skews the data and costs lives
Jails and prisons have been dangerously undertesting their populations for COVID-19. That not only means cases have gone undetected and multiplied, but also that we don't know just how prevalent the virus has been. Our own analysis makes clear that true infection rates are likely much higher those reported.
COVID is surging in Wyoming prisons. Case numbers have been higher than they've ever been throughout the pandemic.
The COVID-19 outbreak inside North Kern State Prison in California is growing rapidly and showing no signs of slowing down.
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