. @CNN has a story on the first death in the D.C. Jail. And it includes a claim that while other jurisdictions have tried to release prisoners during the pandemic, the city hasn't. Well, that's not totally true. https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/13/politics/dc-inmate-dies-coronavirus/index.html

D.C. has released a number of sentenced misdemeanants. But most of the inmates at the D.C. Jail aren't under local control, but rather federal. That means D.C. officials can't simply release them. The inmate who died, for one, was being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney for D.C.

So D.C. has little if any say in whether many inmates at the D.C. Jail are released. A defense attorney can ask a judge to release an inmate, but the U.S. Attorney can (and has in many cases) expressed its opposition.

In short, the situation surrounding who can facilitate a release of an inmate at the D.C. Jail is more complicated than assuming it's D.C. because it's the city jail. Conditions and testing at the facility are a whole other issue, though; that is absolutely within local control.

These are distinctions that matter in a place like D.C., where the U.S. Attorney handles virtually all violent crimes, convicted felons are sent to federal prisons, and the locally elected attorney general has very limited powers when it comes to prosecuting crime.