Numbers are latest evidence to suggest asymptomatic people may be driving the virus spread. FMTNews Prison Virus
A security fence surrounds inmate housing on the Rikers Island correctional facility in New York in 2011.
After testing 2,300 inmates for the coronavirus, they were shocked. Of the 2,028 who tested positive, close to 95% had no symptoms.As mass coronavirus testing expands in prisons, large numbers of inmates are showing no symptoms. “The case count is likely much, much higher than we currently know because of the lack of testing and surveillance.”
State prison systems in Michigan, Tennessee and California have also begun mass testing – checking for coronavirus infections in large numbers of inmates even if they show no sign of illness – but have not provided specific counts of asymptomatic prisoners.In Michigan, state authorities said “a good number” of the 620 prisoners who tested positive for the coronavirus were asymptomatic. California’s state prison system would not release counts of asymptomatic prisoners.
Most state prisons did not provide the age or other demographic details of those who tested positive for the coronavirus, which has killed more than 200,000 people globally, including more than 53,000 in the United States.Reuters surveyed all 50 state prison systems. Of the 30 that responded, most are only testing inmates who show symptoms, suggesting they could be vastly undercounting the number infected by the coronavirus.
“Just as the experts are telling us in our free-world communities, the only way to get ahead of this outbreak is through mass testing.” The state’s Department of Correction has tested 3,503 prisoners at Bledsoe, the Northwest Correctional Complex and the Turney Center Industrial Complex.“It’s what makes the pandemic more difficult to manage,” said Marc Stern, former medical director for the Washington State Department of Corrections and a faculty member at the University of Washington’s School of Public Health.
As of April 23, nine Lakeland inmates had died from Covid-19, accounting for a third of the deaths across Michigan’s 29 state prisons.
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