12 December 2020 :
The Marshall Project reported that, as of December 8, 2020, 249,883 people in prison had tested positive for the illness, and at least 1,657 prisoners have died from the coronavirus, more than have been executed in the United States in the entire period since the death penalty resumed in the 1970s.
Since the start of the pandemic, more than 62,171 prison staff members have tested positive, and prisons have publicly reported 108 deaths among staff.
It’s difficult to assess how prison workers are being affected because many aren’t being systematically tested.
In the most recent week, 15 states—Connecticut, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia—released information on the number of their staff members tested for coronavirus. Where we do know about positive cases, most state corrections departments stress that the count includes only the employees who voluntarily report a diagnosis, often in the course of calling out sick. Since March 26, reporters from The Marshall Project and the Associated Press have been collecting data on COVID-19 tests administered to people incarcerated in all state and federal prisons, as well as the staff in those facilities.
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2020/05/01/a-state-by-state-look-at-coronavirus-in-prisons +
