At a time when the epidemic in the United States is deteriorating, as one of the hardest hit areas of concentrated infection, the outbreak of mass infection in the U.S. prison system has attracted more and more public attention. According to the U.S. Prison Policy Initiative, there are about 2.3 million detainees in the U.S. prison system, and the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 has exceeded 200,000. Some experts believe that prisons have become “incubators” and “rembeds” for the spread of the novel coronavirus.
According to CNN on the 5th, the COVID-19 epidemic is ravaging in the California prison system. According to statistics, the cumulative number of confirmed cases and 90 deaths in California has exceeded 22,300. That means there are 227 confirmed cases in every 1,000 detainees in the state.
According to the New York Times, from March to June, the infection rate of COVID-19 reached 13% of the more than 10,000 detainees tested for the Connecticut prison system for the novel coronavirus.
The New York Times believes that people in American prisons are particularly vulnerable in the face of COVID-19. The poor living environment, the physical condition of basic diseases, and the lack of some prison protection measures make the novel coronavirus very easy to spread among the group of detainees. According to statistics, detainees are four times more likely to contract the novel coronavirus than the general population, and the death rate is higher.
Some detainees said that after the outbreak of the epidemic, they were not well protected and treated like livestock; some prisons did not screen before releasing detainees, causing the virus to spread from prison to the community.
Congregate infections in nursing homes and colleges are also worrying.
In addition to the prison system, cluster infections in the nursing home system in the United States are also worrying. According to data, the number of confirmed cases in long-term care institutions such as nursing homes in the United States accounts for 6% of the number of confirmed cases in the United States. Meanwhile, these institutions accounted for nearly 40% of deaths in the United States; as of last week, the nursing home system had more than 100,000 deaths.
In addition, American universities are also concentrated outbreaks. ( Show) According to the latest statistics of the New York Times, more than 320,000 confirmed cases and at least 80 deaths have been reported on more than 1,900 university campuses across the United States, and the vast majority of infections occur after returning to school in the fall. Of these, more than 65 universities reported at least 1,000 confirmed cases, and more than 540 universities reported at
