Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Alarm Grows For Federal Prison Inmates, Workers As Testing And Treatment Resources Fall Short
Federal prison officials are growing increasingly alarmed about a shortage of resources to test and treat prisoners and workers exposed to COVID-19. Across the Bureau of Prisons' vast network of 122 facilities, at least 29 inmates and 30 staff members have been infected. Officials are scrambling to secure enough staffing and personal protective equipment, or PPE, to meet the need, battling a bureaucracy that has been slow to adapt to the crisis. (Barr, 4/1)
From his cell at the D.C. jail, Kamal Dorchy has spent the past few days writing what he described as 鈥済oodbye鈥 letters to his mother, father, ex-wife and 5-year-old daughter. He is afraid he could be the next to get sick. Eight of his fellow inmates in the Southeast Washington jail have tested positive for the novel coronavirus within the past eight days, quarantined and weakened with fever or chronic coughing. (Alexander, Morse and Hsu, 4/1)
Four inmates at a jail in Washington, D.C., filed a class-action lawsuit this week alleging that staff members are not taking proper safety precautions, putting the inmates at risk of being infected with the coronavirus. The lawsuit claims that inmates at the Central Detention Facility and a treatment center next door were showing symptoms of COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, but were denied tests and had to wait days before they could get medical treatment. (Burke, 4/1)
Should Massachusetts release some prisoners to stem the spread of COVID-19 in jails and prisons?That question is now before the state's highest court. And it's a question that's highlighting some deep divisions 鈥 even among state law enforcement agencies. (Becker, 4/1)
Two weeks ago, immigration detainees at a private prison in LaSalle Parish protested their incarceration as the novel coronavirus聽spread across Louisiana. One claimed they were crammed 90 men to a dorm with five toilets and limited soap. What happened next is in dispute between asylum seekers and officials, but the episode ended with officers unleashing pepper spray on detainees. (Sledge and Stole, 4/1)
