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For the past year, a team of New York Times journalists has tracked every known case of the coronavirus in U.S. prisons, jails, ICE detention centers and more.
This is the excruciating reality that they found: 1 in 3 inmates in state prisons were sickened.
At least 2,700 incarcerated people have died in custody.
This is really important reading: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/04/10/us/covid-prison-outbreak.html">https://www.nytimes.com/interacti...
And the team of journalists went behind the numbers: They talked to inmates, families, prison workers to understand why this played out this way -- even months into the pandemic.
Inmates spoke of fear, and of desperate efforts to avoid the virus in environments that make social distancing impossible. “I don’t know if I’m tough enough to survive Covid,” one inmate at San Quentin said.
The deaths, and many of the more than 525,000 infections so far among the incarcerated, could have been prevented, public health and criminal justice experts say.
“It feels like we’re holding this together with bubble gum and packaging tape,” Todd Ishee, the state commissioner of prisons in North Carolina, said in an interview.
Thanks to a remarkable team of journalists who pursued the story tirelessly: Timothy Williams, @derek_m_norman @izzycolon27, @BCDerr, @rebach97, @AHingaKlein, @danyasawi, @chloerreynolds, @libbyseline, @rachsherm, @mcturcotte
And so many more, including @LazaroGamio, @jlagesse95, @yparshina, @jugalpatelNYT, @grammata, @aroyalbox, @arossback, @simonelandon, @TroyEricG, @ClintonCargill, @archietse, @nytgraphics
More to thank for this extraordinary work: @BurkhalterEddie, @EmilySchwing, Savannah Redl, K.B. Mensah and many more
