Speaker 1: Welcome to Prognosis. I'm Laura Carlson. It's day seventy one
Speaker 1: since coronavirus was declared a global pandemic. Our main story.
Speaker 1: US prisons have been among the places hardest hit by
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen. It's hard to implement strict social distancing when
Speaker 1: you're forced into small, shared living quarters. Advocates for prisoners
Speaker 1: say prison administrators aren't doing enough to protect prison inmates
Speaker 1: and staff, and calls to release large numbers of non
Speaker 1: violent offenders are mounting. But first, here's what happened today.
Speaker 1: More than seventy six million Americans put off getting medical
Speaker 1: care they needed in the past month, according to new
Speaker 1: US Census data. During the pandemic, the Census estimates that
Speaker 1: more than one third of the adult population delayed care.
Speaker 1: The virus is indirectly affecting our health in other ways too.
Speaker 1: The new survey also found high rates of mental health problems,
Speaker 1: including reported symptoms of anxiety, in more than of the population.
Speaker 1: Health experts and medical providers are increasingly concerned about the
Speaker 1: long term consequences of the shutdowns. The US is pledging
Speaker 1: as much as one point to billion dollars to astra
Speaker 1: Zenica to help make the University of Oxford's COVID vaccine.
Speaker 1: President Donald Trump, who has been widely criticized for his
Speaker 1: response to the pandemic, is pushing the country towards the
Speaker 1: front of the line for immunizations. The US has also
Speaker 1: backed projects at Johnson and Johnson, Moderna and Francis Sunofi,
Speaker 1: fueling concerns that other countries could fall behind. Finally, yet
Speaker 1: another grim milestone, coronavirus cases globally have reached five million.
Speaker 1: Over the past month. The number of infections worldwide has doubled.
Speaker 1: The US accounts for almost a third of the cases,
Speaker 1: five times the number seen by Russia, the number two
Speaker 1: country on the list. Experts believe the actual count is
Speaker 1: higher than the official numbers. As COVID nineteen has proven
Speaker 1: difficult to detect and track and now our main story.
Speaker 1: Calls continue to mount for the release of inmates at
Speaker 1: risk of COVID nineteen infection as cases rise at correctional
Speaker 1: facilities across the country. So far, seventent of inmates have
Speaker 1: tested positive for the coronavirus. According to the Bureau of Prisons,
Speaker 1: Oakdale Federal Correctional Complex, a low security prison about two
Speaker 1: hundred miles west of New Orleans is one of the
Speaker 1: federal prisons hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic. Jordan Gospel
Speaker 1: has more on what is being done to combat this
Speaker 1: brother of the disease in the prison population. On March
Speaker 1: n year old Anthony Cheek became the first known federal
Speaker 1: inmate in the United States to die from COVID nineteen.
Speaker 1: He was eighteen years into a twenty year sentence for
Speaker 1: aggravated child molestation at least state prison in Georgia. Since
Speaker 1: Anthony's death, fifty six federal inmates at around one and
Speaker 1: thirty five correctional facilities across the country have died after
Speaker 1: contracting the coronavirus, and thousands more have become infected. The
Speaker 1: rapid spread of the coronavirus in US correctional facilities has
Speaker 1: exposed the risks of overcrowding, lack of access to hygiene,
Speaker 1: and poor healthcare. The number of coronavirus in facts and
Speaker 1: the country's prisons and jails is rising at a rate
Speaker 1: far surpassing the US population at large. In April, Attorney
Speaker 1: General William Barr directed federal prison officials to speed the
Speaker 1: release of inmates at risk of contracting COVID nineteen. This
Speaker 1: directive under the CARES Act was aimed at addressing coronavirus
Speaker 1: outbreaks in correctional facilities across the country. Bar directed the
Speaker 1: Bureau of Prisons dispete up transfers to home confinement for
Speaker 1: eligible inmates at three federal institutions hit hardest by the disease,
Speaker 1: Danbury in Connecticut, Elkton in Ohio, and Oakdale in Louisiana.
Speaker 1: To qualify, inmates must have completed at least half of
Speaker 1: their sentence to be eligible for home confinement. This doesn't
Speaker 1: mean an inmates sentence is nullified or their convictions are expunged.
Speaker 1: Home confinement is merely the transfer of an inmate from
Speaker 1: inside a correctional facility to their house or that of
Speaker 1: a family member. Advocates argue that Bar's order doesn't go
Speaker 1: far enough. On April six, the a c l U
Speaker 1: filed a lawsuit in the hopes that at least inmates
Speaker 1: from the Federal Correctional complex in Oakdale, Louisiana, who are
Speaker 1: at a higher risk of contracting the coronavirus will be
Speaker 1: allowed to complete their sentence at home. Oakdale has seen
Speaker 1: one of the worst COVID nineteen outbreaks of any correctional
Speaker 1: facility in the country. Judge Terry Dowdy of the U. S.
Speaker 1: District Court for the Western District of Louisiana dismissed the case,
Speaker 1: saying he did not have the authority to mandate releases
Speaker 1: or home confinement. Despite the judge's ruling, the a c
Speaker 1: l U is still encouraging the Bureau of Prisons to
Speaker 1: move forward with releases from Oakdale. Amid the pandemic. There's
Speaker 1: a nationwide movement to release large numbers of prisoners. Samuil Trivetti,
Speaker 1: a senior staff attorney with the a c l YOU,
Speaker 1: says critical reforms were needed before the spread of the coronavirus,
Speaker 1: but are now more urgent than ever. As of more
Speaker 1: than two million people were incarcerated in the US, the
Speaker 1: most out of any country in the world. The a
Speaker 1: c l U is one of numerous organizations putting pressure
Speaker 1: on prosecutors and law enforcement to reduce jail and prison
Speaker 1: populations by not arresting people for low level offenses. They
Speaker 1: estimate that these efforts would save fifty nine thousand lives.
Speaker 1: At Oakdale, no inmates have been placed in home confinement
Speaker 1: in response to Bars memo, some inmates who were already
Speaker 1: scheduled to go home before the pandemic are still waiting
Speaker 1: to be transferred. So far, eight inmates at Oakdale have
Speaker 1: died from the coronavirus. A Bureau of Prison spokesperson says
Speaker 1: that since the release of Bars memo on March, it
Speaker 1: is placed an additional one thousand, five hundred and seventy
Speaker 1: six inmates from across the country on home confinement to date.
Speaker 1: I spoke with Samil Trivetti, who says inmates and their
Speaker 1: loved ones have been receiving conflicting reports from BAR and
Speaker 1: the Bureau of Prisons, which is responsible for one hundred
Speaker 1: and forty six thousand inmates spread across one hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty two facilities nationwide. Of your own prisons and up
Speaker 1: to the Interney General, have been releasing sort of changing
Speaker 1: sets of criteria UM, but unfortunately, most of those criteria
Speaker 1: are based on essentially fearmongering that, UM, they're gonna look
Speaker 1: at your your past history, they're gonna look at your
Speaker 1: They're gonna look at these UM risk assessment algorithms to
Speaker 1: decide whether you might be potentially dangerous when you're out
Speaker 1: in the world. Um, what happens in the jay or
Speaker 1: prison cannot stay in a jail or prison, right, Um,
Speaker 1: you have prisoners coming in and out, you have guards
Speaker 1: coming in and out. It's impossible to hermetically feel a
Speaker 1: jail and just hope that if folks inside get COVID,
Speaker 1: it won't get out to the larger community. Initially, inmates
Speaker 1: who are more at risk of contracting the coronavirus, like
Speaker 1: those who are older or have underlying medical conditions, were
Speaker 1: put on a list and moved into solitary confinement known
Speaker 1: in prisons as the shoe, in advance of the release home.
Speaker 1: It didn't matter how much of their prison term they
Speaker 1: had served. The a c l U wants to increase
Speaker 1: the use of home confinement in an effort to reduce
Speaker 1: the inmate population and help prevent the spread of COVID nineteen.
Speaker 1: Samil says bars order doesn't establish concrete timelines and guidelines
Speaker 1: for facilities to release at risk inmates. Another problem with
Speaker 1: the order is that it uses criteria from before the pandemic,
Speaker 1: like prioritizing inmates in low and minimum security facilities to
Speaker 1: decide whether or not they can serve the remainder of
Speaker 1: their sentence at home. By using this criteria, Samill says,
Speaker 1: the Bureau of Prisons is only going to review about
Speaker 1: eighty to one d inmates. I mean public ELSA experts
Speaker 1: roundly agree that we need to significantly significantly reduce the
Speaker 1: population inside so that the folks remaining can socially distanced.
Speaker 1: Right So, in a prison of people releasing at most
Speaker 1: one and we're not even sure whether they're going to
Speaker 1: release all of those people, but even if they're released
Speaker 1: everybody they were reviewing, that would do nothing to increase
Speaker 1: social distancing or allow for the kind of hygienic protocols
Speaker 1: that we know are necessary and that we're all following
Speaker 1: out here. The Bureau of Prisons, which declined an interview request,
Speaker 1: says it began preparing for the coronavirus outbreak in January.
Speaker 1: But those who have been at Oakdale tell another story.
Speaker 1: Brandon Leads was an inmate at Oakdale serving a fifteen
Speaker 1: month sentence for bank larceny, a first time non violent offense.
Speaker 1: He scheduled to complete his sentence on September twenty nine.
Speaker 1: He's one of the inmates who sued the prison with
Speaker 1: the A C. L U in hopes of being able
Speaker 1: to serve the remainder of his sentence at home. Although
Speaker 1: the lawsuit was unsuccessful, Brandon was granted a furlough and
Speaker 1: transferred to home confinement on May eleven. He's now living
Speaker 1: with his girlfriend, our Shaun Thompson, in New Orleans. They'll
Speaker 1: be together until he's moved into a halfway house on
Speaker 1: July six. Brandon is one of the lucky ones. Only
Speaker 1: a few inmates at Oakdale have been improved for early release.
Speaker 1: Last month, the Louisiana Department of Corrections created a COVID
Speaker 1: nineteen furlow Review Panel to speed up the temporary release
Speaker 1: of inmates at risk of contracting the disease and other's
Speaker 1: convicted of non violent offenses. The COVID nineteen furlow Review
Speaker 1: Panel will review cases on a rolling case by case
Speaker 1: basis until the state's governor determines the coronavirus is no
Speaker 1: longer a public health emergency. Still, it's hard to know
Speaker 1: the reasons some inmates are furloughed and others are not.
Speaker 1: There's no public data on this, so Brandon can only
Speaker 1: assume he was released from Oakdale because he was imprisoned
Speaker 1: on a non violent offense and suffers from diabetes and
Speaker 1: acute pancreatitis, making him predisposed to respiratory illnesses. It's difficult
Speaker 1: to get accurate information on what's going on inside the
Speaker 1: prison system as it is let alone during a pandemic,
Speaker 1: but an email's Brandon sent while he was still incarcerated,
Speaker 1: he described a crisis that seems to be getting worse
Speaker 1: by the day. Brandon says although Oakdale inmates have access
Speaker 1: to soap and water, there are no other supplies to
Speaker 1: sanitize their dorms. Alcohol based and sanitizer is illegal and
Speaker 1: most correctional facilities, including Oakdale, because according to the Bureau
Speaker 1: of Prisons, it is flammable and a safety hazard. But
Speaker 1: during the pandemic, the CDC recommended that correctional facilities relax
Speaker 1: restrictions on hand sanitizer. Louisiana is among the seventeen states
Speaker 1: that are maintaining their bands on alcohol based hand sanitizer.
Speaker 1: Scott Taylor with the Bureau of Prisons says Oakdale is
Speaker 1: selling non alcohol hand sanitizer in the commissary. This goes
Speaker 1: against the CDC's recommendation of using sanitizer with at least
Speaker 1: six alcohol by volume. Though the Bureau of Prisons has
Speaker 1: set inmates at all of their facilities, including Oakdale, are
Speaker 1: now being quarantined and kept apart our. Joan Brandon's girlfriend
Speaker 1: says that's not what Brandon described when he was in prison,
Speaker 1: or what he says his fellow inmates are experiencing. Now.
Speaker 1: They're super close together, and I mean they've now had
Speaker 1: to which they've done everywhere. They've closed the weight room,
Speaker 1: they closed the rooms where there are places for them
Speaker 1: to go and be a little bit further apart from
Speaker 1: each other. And they posted signs saying stay six ft apart,
Speaker 1: but they can't stay six ft apart of their beds
Speaker 1: aren't even six ft apart. So I just don't see
Speaker 1: how any of the protocol that they can put in
Speaker 1: place would be effective in any way. Scott Taylor, a
Speaker 1: Bureau of Prison spokesperson, wrote in an email saying that
Speaker 1: in response to the coronavirus, inmates at all correctional facilities
Speaker 1: are limited in their movements within the buildings and only
Speaker 1: small numbers can gather in communal spaces at a time.
Speaker 1: Taylor added that those showing signs of the virus are
Speaker 1: not placed on any work details or work assignments. Samil
Speaker 1: Travetti says that hasn't been enough, at least not at Oakdale.
Speaker 1: We have declarations from some of the men inside thing
Speaker 1: they hear people coughing all night. It is impossible to
Speaker 1: sally socially distanced inside of prison, and that's why now
Speaker 1: the only thing that will work is transferred to home confinement,
Speaker 1: um and reducing the population. Staff at Oakdale and other
Speaker 1: facilities reported they initially were only given gloves after the
Speaker 1: rise in COVID nineteen cases. The Bureau of Prisons also
Speaker 1: sent face masks to inmates and staff, and gowns for
Speaker 1: employees to wear. Coming to work now also involves a
Speaker 1: health assessment and temperature reading by medical staff. There are
Speaker 1: reports from inmates, the a c l U, and the
Speaker 1: American Federation of Government Employees, which represents Federal Correctional officers
Speaker 1: of prison and jail staff, quitting due to fears of
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen infection. Samil says. Oakdale expanded testing for the
Speaker 1: coronavirus last week, revealing dozens of new cases. According to
Speaker 1: some of the facilities and mates, Even if the Bureau
Speaker 1: of Prisons increases the number of staff and tries to
Speaker 1: isolate inmates on site. Some advocates believe it's too little,
Speaker 1: too late. That was Jordan gas Poore and that's our
Speaker 1: show today. For coverage of the outbreak from one and
Speaker 1: twenty bureaus around the world, visit bloomberg dot com slash
Speaker 1: Coronavirus and if you like the show, please leave us
Speaker 1: a review and a rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
Speaker 1: It's the best way to help more listeners find our
Speaker 1: global reporting. The Prognosis Daily edition is produced by Toph
Speaker 1: for foreheads Jordan gas Poore, Magnus Hendrickson, and me Laura Carlson.
Speaker 1: Today's main story was reported by Jordan gas Poure. Original
Speaker 1: music by Leo Sidrin. Our editors are Francesco Levi and
Speaker 1: Rick Shawn. Francesco Levi is Bloomberg's head of podcasts. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening, h