Prisons consider releasing certain inmates over coronavirus concerns
Inmate and corrections officer test positive for coronavirus at Rikers Island; Jacqui Heinrich reports.
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Texas officials announced Tuesday state prisons will begin widespread testing for inmates after concerns the coronavirus has largely entrenched the system while so far going widely undetected.
Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) spokesperson Jeremy Desel said tens of thousands of tests will be sent out and divided among all 104 state prison units. Inmates will be shown an agency video on how to administer the tests themselves to prevent contagion to staff, the Texas Tribune reported.
As of Monday, only about 2 percent of some 140,000 inmates in the Texas prison system had been tested for the virus. Of those tested, nearly 74 percent yielded a positive result.
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That figure is drastically higher than the rate of the rest of the Texas population. Of the 538,172 tests administered statewide, at least 41,048 – or just below 8 percent – yielded positive results. At least 1,133 people have died in Texas after contracting COVID-19.
“Increasing the information available to our medical professionals will help us to further enhance the agency’s ability of stop the spread of COVID-19,” Bryan Collier, TDCJ's executive director, said in the statement, according to the Tribune.
More than 2,100 inmates – incarcerated across 40 separate jail units – had yielded positive test results by Tuesday, according to the latest data released by TDCJ. More than 650 employees and contract staff across the state prison system have tested positive.
MASSIVE CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK AT TEXAS FEDERAL PRISON RACKS UP COUNTY TOTAL TO NEAR 4,000
That included at least 10 inmates at Wallace Pack Unit, a geriatric prison near Houston, which has been targeted by a class-action lawsuit alleging social distancing and proper sanitization procedures were never enforced to protect at the onset of the pandemic, KVIA-TV in El Paso reported.
"We do anticipate that there’s going to be a significant increase in the number of positive tests," Desel said. "Any type of asymptomatic or mass testing has had at least some level of increase."
At least 30 inmates and at least 7 TDCJ employees have died presumably from COVID-19.
Before late April, when large-scale outbreaks were detected at several state prisons, only symptomatic inmates were being tested.
Several prisons then began targeted testing for asymptomatic inmates identified as the most vulnerable to serious complications from the virus, including those 65 or older or with pre-existing health conditions. Employees without symptoms were tested at some facilities.
As of Friday, any facility with a confirmed positive inmate or employee COVID-19 test was placed on a precautionary lockdown for at least 14 days from the date of the positive test. That was in addition to existing medical restriction and medical isolation measures already in place.
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Advocates have called for the release of prisoners amid the pandemic, arguing smaller inmate populations allow more space for social distancing and separating the sick, as well as those who have come in contact with an infected person, from the rest of those incarcerated.
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