Lockdown At Terminal Island Federal Prison Curbs Deadly Coronavirus Outbreak

Pennsylvania prisons' relatively uncrowded conditions and approach to releasing people early when the pandemic hit have limited deaths in its prisons, making people incarcerated in Pennsylvania less than half as likely to die of COVID-19 as free Pennsylvanians. In neighboring Ohio, where COVID cases appeared simultaneously, the prison death rate has been nearly seven times higher than Pennsylvania's. Ohio's prisons are far more crowded, they rely much more on dorm-style housing, and their early-release rules were much more restrictive.

When faced with the coronavirus pandemic, a number of countries around the world "opted for delayed containment strategies," but countries such as Taiwan and Hong Kong, which took the opposite approach, have seen more success with mitigating the spread. The governments in these countries implemented many aggressive initiatives that were aimed at widespread testing, restricted travel, and contact tracing.

Although the United States, Spain, and Italy are still working to contain the coronavirus outbreak, countries across Asia have seen some success. By implementing rapid intervention and widespread testing, places such as South Korea and Taiwain have seen a decrease in cases and have begun steps to lift some of the restrictions that were in place.

As much of Europe and the United States are still in the early stages of trying to contain the coronavirus, countries in Asia offer several lessons in mitigation strategies. Rapid government intervention and regulation helped to slow the spread in Taiwan while in South Korea, increased transparency and mass testing – made possible because the country opened the process to the private sector – have shown to have helped flatten the curve of transmission.

Singapore has seemingly been able to contain the coronavirus outbreak by relying on quick actions taken by the government and lessons learned from both the SARS and H1N1 outbreaks that impacted the region years ago. With "ready-made government quarantine facilities and a 330-bed, state-of-the-art national center for managing infectious diseases," the region has yet to see a death from this novel coronavirus despite 96 people identified as infected.

Senegal limited COVID-19 cases in the pandemic’s first year using an existing infrastructure built from dealing with Ebola outbreaks. Coordinated emergency response teams quickly expanded testing capacity across the country and positive cases were required to quarantine in hotels or health centers, where Red Cross volunteers staffed the beds, rather than at home. Village health workers, who were trusted community members, educated people on how to respond to the virus, helped reduce the stigma of the virus, and urged people to follow the strict social distancing, masking, and quarantining rules.

COVID-19 outbreaks in Iowa prisons have been contained through extensive testing, quarantines, and reductions in prison crowding. The state's prison population hit a 20-year low, down 13% from early April, because of accelerated parole hearings and reductions in new admissions. The state courts' slowdown and the prisons' temporary suspension in new admissions contributed to the population decrease. Since March, four people incarcerated in Iowa prisons have died of the virus while 833 have tested positive. An additional 126 staff have tested positive.

New Mexico criminal justice officials joined forces to lower local jail populations by one-third in just 11 weeks, a rushed COVID-19 response that not only seems to have prevented widespread illness but also led law enforcement officials to question whether they need to lock up so many people in the future. Prosecutors, police, and county jails arrested fewer people, released low-risk inmates, and suspended “warrant sweeps” and jailing people for technical probation and parole violations. With 27 jails less than half-full, a top prosecutor acknowledged the virus response may turn into standard practice.

Through the first week of May 2020, New Hampshire prisons and jails had avoided a COVID-19 outbreak after taking only modest prevention measures. There were no deaths and no reported cases among the more than 2,400 people held in state prisons, nor in any county jails, and only a handful of prison and jail staff had tested positive. Prisons screened employees entering facilities, engaged in extensive cleaning, suspended visits, and limited transfers and programs. Though the prisons followed CDC guidelines on testing, critics say they have not tested enough to track the virus' spread.

After learning of the first cases of coronavirus that weren't contracted by direct exposure or from foreign travel, officials in Washington took quick and strict measures to start introducing social distancing, which may have helped slow the transmission. Although the hospitals are low on supplies, they have not yet been "overrun," indicating that modeling and widespread testing, along with limiting human-to-human interactions and gatherings, were all beneficial parts of the strategy to slow the spread.