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Covid continues on a deadly path in Michigan prisons.
To date, 104 state inmates have died from the virus and nearly 20,000 -- almost half the prison population -- have tested positive, Ross Jones and Allie Gross of WXYZ report.
"One of the most staggering data points that I’ve come across so far is that the infection rate of COVID-19 in prisons and jails is more than four times as high as in the general population and the death rates in prisons and jails is more than twice as high," Wanda Bertram of the Prison Policy Initiative, a nonpartisan think tank based in Massachusetts, tells the station.
Michigan reflects the prison experience in America, where old buildings with poor ventilation and limited social distancing let the virus spread, Bertram said.
"It’s very difficult to socially distance, especially when you have to have a correctional officer escort you, if you’re an incarcerated person, everywhere you go," Bertram said.
The Department of Corrections tests each prison's staff and inmates weekly, it says. But inmate advocates say the state needs to do more and release more offenders to lower numbers.
