Ten inmates in California state prisons have died from complications from COVID-19 in the last week, bringing the total number of prisoner deaths related to the coronavirus to 184. Nineteen staff members for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation have also died from the virus.
The number of active cases in custody has been dropping since a high of nearly 11,000 on Dec. 20.
Still, as of Jan. 18, infections in state prisons were about six times those of California as a whole when adjusted for population.
Just over 3,000 incarcerated people have gotten their first dose of the vaccine, which takes a few weeks to offer protection. But even inoculation won't prevent the virus from spreading in penitentiaries, says Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease specialist at UCSF.
“It doesn’t matter if you vaccinate a zillion people, if they are crowded together they are going to spread COVID very efficiently,” he said.
While the vaccine is a helpful tool, it needs to be coupled with other safety measures like physical distancing of inmates, masks and proper ventilation, says Chin-Hong.
Prison facilities “are ancient for the mass majority of locations," he said. "They are overcrowded ... It seems really surprising, disappointing and heartbreaking that we haven’t cared for inmates as we have for the general population.”
He warns that the arrival of new, more infectious variants of the virus may already be circulating in California prisons. A more transmissible virus, combined with an aging prison population, can spell disaster, he says.
“The risk of these individuals after contracting COVID in terms of doing poorly and dying is higher than your general population,” says Chin-Hong.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said approximately 18,640 people have had their release date sped up due to the pandemic. CDCR has released 24,000 inmates overall since March, it said.