Read on Twitter
SCOOP: The Texas prison system will begin mass-testing inmates for COVID at certain units this week, according to an email sent to officials.
The testing, which will be conducted by medical provider UTMB, will start at 5 units that have had a lot of positive tests: Beto, Murray, Wynne, Telford and Stringfellow.
These are the units that have the most positives so far; there are 193 total positives, including 72 at Beto, 22 at Murray, 37 at Telford, 27 at Wynne & 8 at Stringfellow.
That’s 166 of the agency's 193 total.
That’s 166 of the agency's 193 total.
The test swabs (3,000) were to be delivered today and testing will target the medically restricted areas of the above units, where people who've been exposed but have no symptoms are being housed.
That initial amount looks like it won’t be enough to quite test everyone who's in medical restriction at those units as of now: Currently there are 2202 in medical restriction at Beto, 694 at Murray, 1729 at Wynne, 913 at Telford and 236 at Stringfellow.
The agency has not yet offered comment on the record on this, but this sort of widespread testing is exactly what I've had doctors suggest repeatedly in the past few weeks. Yet, it's something most jails/prisons don't seem to be doing.
In Florida, the agency's refusal to say how much testing they'd done raised questions about why there was allegedly not a single positive until last week, as reported by @conarck https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article241777246.html
At the federal prison in Oakdale, officials basically just gave up; there were so many cases they stopped testing there and began assuming everyone who is symptomatic has it - which means it's not reflected in the daily numbers. https://thelensnola.org/2020/03/31/louisiana-federal-prison-no-longer-testing-symptomatic-inmates-for-coronavirus-due-to-sustained-transmission/
And as @sjmichaels reported today, when one prison in Arkansas tested an entire barracks after 1 positive, they found *43 out of 46* inmates there had it. https://twitter.com/sjmichaels/status/1249771202509287424?s=20
So if a few thousand Texas prisoners who were all potentially exposed get tested, the results could seem stunning - even if many are currently asymptomatic.
Prisoner advocates were heartened by the idea of more testing:
“It’s a good start to figure out what’s going on, and they need to do more contact tracing,” said Jennifer Erschabek of Texas Inmate Families Assoc. “We need to figure out who’s got what & then go from there.”
“It’s a good start to figure out what’s going on, and they need to do more contact tracing,” said Jennifer Erschabek of Texas Inmate Families Assoc. “We need to figure out who’s got what & then go from there.”
If the department offers official comment on this, I'll update accordingly.
