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The Michigan Department of Corrections is not testing prisoners before they are released or requiring that they self-quarantine, the Detroit Free Press reports.
That news comes as the coronavirus continues to spread through prisons. More than 530 inmates and nearly 200 Corrections Department employees have tested positive for the virus. The infection rate at one Jackson-area prison tops 10% for prisoners and 20% for staff, Dan Egan writes.
Some medical experts say many prisoners can't be released safely without first being tested and/or then being quarantined for 14 days.
"You have to be careful with how that is done and you have to have some type of testing before letting them out. ... What we don't want to see is widespread transmission within a community," the paper quotes Dr. Burton Bentley II, CEO of Elite Medical Experts, an Arizona firm that has consulted on issues related to coronavirus and state prisons, as saying.
