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(Reuters) – When the first cases of the new coronavirus appeared in Ohio jails, the director-in-charge felt he was battling a ghost.
“We weren’t always able to determine where all the cases came from,” said Annette Chambers-Smith, director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. As the virus spread, mass testing began.
They started with the Marion Correctional Institution, which houses 2,500 prisoners in north central Ohio, many of them older with pre-existing health conditions. After screening 2,300 inmates for the coronavirus, they were surprised. Of the 2,028 who tested positive, about 95% had no symptoms.
“It was very surprising,” said Chambers-Smith, who oversees the state’s 28 correctional facilities.
As massive coronavirus testing expands in prisons, large numbers of inmates show no symptoms. In four state prison systems: Arkansas, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia, 96% of 3,277 inmates who tested positive for the coronavirus were asymptomatic, according to interviews with officials and records reviewed by Reuters. That’s 4,693 tests that included symptom results.
The numbers are the latest evidence to suggest that asymptomatic, contagious but not physically ill people may be driving the spread of the virus, not only in state prisons that house 1.3 million prisoners across the country, but also in communities across the country. all the world. . The figures also reinforce questions about whether tests of only people suspected of being infected are really capturing the spread of the virus.
“It adds to the understanding that we have a severe case count in the United States,” Dr. Leana Wen, associate associate professor of emergency medicine at George Washington University, said of the Reuters findings. “The case count is probably much, much higher than we currently know due to a lack of evidence and surveillance.”
However, some people diagnosed as asymptomatic when undergoing a coronavirus screening test may develop symptoms later, according to the researchers.
The United States has more people behind bars than any other nation, a total incarcerated population of nearly 2.3 million as of 2017, nearly half of which is in state jails. Smaller numbers are locked up in federal prisons and local jails, which generally hold people for relatively short periods while awaiting trial.
State prison systems in Michigan, Tennessee, and California have also begun mass testing, to detect coronavirus infections in large numbers of inmates, even if they show no signs of illness, but have not provided specific counts of asymptomatic inmates.
Tennessee said most of its positive cases showed no symptoms. In Michigan, state authorities said “a good number” of the 620 prisoners who tested positive for coronavirus were asymptomatic. California’s state prison system would not publish asymptomatic prisoner counts.
Each state manages multiple prison facilities. Ohio, for example, has 49,000 prisoners in 28 facilities. A total of 3,837 inmates tested positive for coronavirus at 15 of those facilities. But the state has yet to provide symptom results for 1,809 of them and did not identify the total number of tests conducted across the prison system.
Arkansas and Tennessee have also taken a specific approach by conducting mass testing at several of their facilities. Michigan, North Carolina, California and Virginia have each started with one installation.
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 worldwide, including more than 53,000 in the United States.
LOW ACCOUNT
Reuters surveyed all 50 state prison systems. Of the 30 who responded, most only evaluate inmates who show symptoms, suggesting that they may be counting the number of people infected with the coronavirus very little.
Florida and Texas, whose inmate populations are larger than Ohio’s, report a combined total of just 931 cases, far less than the 3,837 inmates who tested positive in Ohio. New York, the epicenter of the US outbreak. The USA, has reported 269 positive cases among 51,000 inmates. All three states are only testing symptomatic prisoners.
“Correctional agencies are almost certainly counting the number of COVID cases among people incarcerated very little,” said Michele Deitch, corrections specialist and tenured professor at the University of Texas. “As experts tell us in our free world communities, the only way to get ahead of this outbreak is through mass testing.”
Prison officials in Florida and Texas said they were following instructions from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. USA Along with state health officials in evaluating only inmates who show symptoms of the virus. The New York Department of Corrections said its policy of evaluating only prisoners who show symptoms was “a reflection of testing procedures in the general public.”
Tennessee took an aggressive approach after a dozen inmates tested positive at the Bledsoe County Correctional Complex in the city of Pikeville last week. The state Department of Correction has examined 3,503 prisoners in Bledsoe, the Northwest Correctional Complex and the Turney Center Industrial Complex.
As of Friday, 651 were positive, and most of them were asymptomatic, the department said.
“It is what makes the pandemic more difficult to manage,” said Marc Stern, a former medical director at the Washington State Department of Corrections and a faculty member at the University of Washington School of Public Health. “There are many people who are asymptomatic.”
After a recent spike in cases at the Neuse Correctional Institution in Goldsboro, North Carolina, state correctional officials evaluated the 723 prisoners last week. Of the 444 infected with the virus, 98% were asymptomatic, the state department of public safety said. An inmate has died in prison.
Similarly, massive tests at two Arkansas prisons, the Cummins Unit in Grady City and the Community Correction Center in the state capital Little Rock, found 751 infected inmates, nearly all asymptomatic, the department said. of state corrections. It did not provide the total number of prisoners that were examined.
Arkansas jails have faced outbreaks of communicable diseases before, such as scabies and chicken pox, but those episodes were easier to manage because inmates showed obvious symptoms, Arkansas Department of Corrections spokeswoman Dina Tyler said. “But with this virus, you have no idea because many are asymptomatic. It makes it very difficult to contain it, ”he said.
“24 – OUR DELIVERY IS CRUCIAL”
Michigan’s Lakeland Correctional Center houses some of the state’s oldest and most medically fragile prisoners. As coronavirus cases increased, the prison saw an increase in infections and deaths. As of April 23, nine Lakeland inmates had died from COVID-19, accounting for a third of the deaths in all 29 Michigan state jails.
According to state data, nearly half of the 1,400 Lakeland prisoners suffer from chronic underlying health conditions. Many are in wheelchairs, and the minimal security facility in southern Michigan has its own geriatric unit for its large elderly population.
On Tuesday, the prison examined the 400 inmates in the nursing home and plans to evaluate the rest of the facilities by the end of the week. Of the 971 tested so far, 642, or about 66%, were positive. A state official declined to reveal how many were asymptomatic.
“We know that mass testing will increase our numbers and make us look bad,” said Chris Gautz, spokesman for the Michigan Department of Corrections. “But I don’t think there is another prison system in the country that doesn’t have large numbers.” They may not be testing as rigorously as we do. ”
All of the inmates examined are quarantined in their rooms or units awaiting test results, which usually return in one day, he said. “The 24-hour change is crucial” because once an inmate tests negative, he can return to the general population, he said.
In the seven state prison systems that carry out mass tests, 49 inmates have died.
As the coronavirus spreads behind bars, human rights groups and public defenders say they fear it will succumb more, and have pushed for the release of elderly, high-risk, non-violent inmates. While thousands have been released, overcrowding conditions, often unsanitary, have raised concerns that prisons and jails may become vectors of the disease.
“They are worse than landlocked cruises,” said Stern, the corrections expert, referring to stranded cruises that have been overwhelmed by coronavirus infections.
Linda So reported from Washington and Grant Smith from New York. Additional reporting by Brad Heath. Editing by Jason Szep
