New Leader in Michigan COVID-19 Prisoner Deaths.
A cluster of new COVID-19 cases is exploding at Lakeland Correctional Facility (LCF), where I am currently incarcerated, as it receives the sullen distinction of becoming the prison with the highest Coronavirus death rate in the state. The prison now accounts for 32% of the deaths of imprisoned people statewide.
Just 30 days after the first incarcerated person in a Michigan prison tested positive for Coronavirus, 208 incarcerated men have contracted the lethal disease at LCF, and eight of them have sadly died from it as the virus runs rampant through the prison, suffocating the vitality of human life.
Five of the deaths have occurred in just the past week. Of that number most were housed in a long-term care housing unit attached to the same building where Health Care staff work.
It has been a month replete with lurid images of people collapsing, being slumped over as they’re being pushed in wheelchairs due to their inability to walk on their own, and people on stretchers being wheeled into the back of ambulances for the first leg of a journey with an uncertain ending.
Statewide 717 incarcerated people in Michigan prisons have contracted COVID-19 — more than the entire federal prison system combined. During the past seventeen days 25 imprisoned people have died from the virus, and the number of staff members who have been infected by it statewide is 230.
The past few tumultuous days dozens of men at LCF have exhibited multiple symptoms of COVID-19 and been transported to the hospital by ambulances, or placed in the quarantine housing unit at the prison while awaiting COVID-19 test results.
Monday morning during breakfast meal lines three ambulances were at the prison at the same time to transport people to the hospital, followed by another ambulance that arrived a short time later for the same purpose.
Mounting evidence has surfaced during recent weeks proving that people continue transmitting Coronavirus to one another through the LCF dining hall. Prison dining halls have become cesspools for propagation of the virus.
However, other than quarantining people who live near someone in their housing unit who tests positive for COVID-19, no one else is being quarantined because of the lack of contact tracing taking place in prisons. People who the person may work side-by-side with daily in the dining hall are not quarantined at all because prisons want to avoid worker shortages.
Consequently the virus continues to spread unabated as people enter and exit the dining hall throughout the day, interacting with people from various housing units, and then returning to their own housing units spreading any COVID-19 contaminants they may have encountered along the way.
Despite the rising death toll and new Coronavirus cases at the prison, the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) obdurately continues feeding people meals in the crowded dining halls instead of providing them packaged meals to eat in their housing units to mitigate the spread of the virus.
Yesterday LCF maintenance workers painted small yellow plus signs six feet apart on the dining room floor where people line up to wait to receive their meals in the serving line. They are intended to serve as a reminder to practice social distancing. However, as soon as people receive their meal tray they are required to sit closely together at small tables to eat their meals.
Feeding people in dining halls during the COVID-19 pandemic is compromising the health of the people eating in that space, as well as the staff members who work there. Any competent epidemiologist or reasonably minded person who has studied COVID-19 will attest that the practice does not comport with CDC social distancing guidelines or common sense.
To their credit Monday the MDOC administered COVID-19 tests to a large number of people at LCF in the housing unit where several people were housed at who have died of the disease. It is the wisest decision made by MDOC administrators yet in their handling of the COVID-19 crisis.
Tuesday morning the MDOC announced it will also be testing an additional 400 people at the prison soon. It is the first time the MDOC has done robust testing of people who did not have advanced COVID-19 symptoms. This morning thankfully everyone in my housing unit, me included, will be tested as well.
Everyone at the prison — both incarcerated people and staff members — should be tested because data has shown most people who are infected with COVID-19 are asymptomatic. It will ensure that anyone who is carrying the virus can be immediately isolated to help prevent them from further spreading the disease.
This is a major improvement to people being denied health care, which is what has repeatedly occurred when people have sought COVID-19 testing when complaining about symptoms during the past few weeks. If they didn’t have a fever they were being denied a test and sent back to their housing unit to continue spreading the disease, if they were infected.
The testing will confirm what I have been writing about and discussing during TV news, radio show, and podcast interviews in recent weeks regarding the widespread problem of COVID-19 infected people at LCF. A problem that has gone ignored by Health Care Services, which is a private corporation owned by Corizon.
Many incarcerated people and LCF staff members expect that testing done to scale will soon reveal hundreds of people here who have contracted COVID-19, and within the next few days we will become the prison with the highest number of COVID-19 cases in the state by far.
Four hundred tests is a good starting point, but more need to be tested to break the chain of transmission and eradicate the contagion. If not, new clusters of the disease will continue emerging. It is a sobering reality I hope the MDOC considers moving forward.
I have been critical of how this crisis has been managed by the MDOC because I know there have been some serious mistakes and missteps along the way, and have wanted to offer helpful ideas to resolve some of the issues. While I get this is an unprecedented crisis, there are some things that could have been handled differently which would have made a difference.
The MDOC’s decision-making directly impacts me. They are making serious decisions about my life which could be irreversible and catastrophic. It would be irresponsible of me not to become a part of the problem-solving process that affects me and the community I live in.
I have been addressing the need to increase COVID-19 testing for weeks because it is one of the three essential requirements to truly mitigate and contain the spread of the disease (e.g., testing, isolation, and contact tracing). Anything else is wishful thinking.
Without testing and contact tracing the MDOC cannot make informed decisions about where asymptomatic COVID-19 trouble spots exist at prisons waiting to bubble to the surface, and where they need to direct more resources and attention, because they are flying blindly.
If robust testing would have occurred sooner in Michigan prisons it could have saved lives and helped the MDOC wrap its arms around the problem much sooner. We can’t wait until a problem reaches perilous proportions before trying to correct it. As the data and scientists have made abundantly clear, in this pandemic when you wait to see a problem emerge before acting, you’re too late.
A new study released in recent days was featured on CNN Monday evening about a person infected with COVID-19 who ate at a restaurant and transmitted the disease to people sitting at his own table, as well as to people seated at two adjacent tables.
This morning the TODAY Show featured a segment by Kerry Sanders titled “Putting Social Distancing to the Test” about a lab that tracks the impact of coughing in various spaces. It illustrated how far respiratory droplets can travel within seconds when a person coughs, and showed that within a couple minutes the droplets linger in the air, and able to travel distances of up to twelve feet.
These reports support the urgent need for all MDOC prisons to suspend the practice of feeding people in dining halls until the COVID-19 crisis ends, which the MDOC has repeatedly implacably ignored.
Alternatively, the MDOC should provide packaged meals to people that they can pick up from the dining hall and return to their housing unit to eat, rather than being forced to eat with others at small tables with people less than two feet away in the dining hall.
I’m not suggesting it be done forever. Just until it’s safe to begin eating in close contact together again. It’s a sensible solution that can make a big difference. It will also signal to incarcerated people that the MDOC believes their lives have meaning through their actions, not only through their words.
Right now the optics of feeding people in crowded dining halls less than six feet apart is sending the message that the MDOC is more concerned with selfishly saving money to package food than saving lives.
As people feel increasingly frustrated and demoralized with the lack of serious attention being given to their health and safety by the MDOC, it is resulting in them making poor choices about the health and safety of themselves and others.
They are feeling trapped and powerless and, along with experiencing waves of misery, fear, and rising anxiety. Some are also convinced that the way this crisis has been managed thus far is putting them on a collision course of inevitably becoming infected with COVID-19, and they could potentially die unless they begin to see dramatic changes.
Sadly some people have adopted the distorted belief that if they’re going to contract the disease anyway why should they care about practicing social distancing to mitigate the spread of the disease to themselves or others. This thinking is impeding their impulse to survive, and putting them and others dangerously at risk.
When the MDOC tells incarcerated people to stay six feet apart, but feeds them in the dining hall less than two feet apart, they are sending the conflicting message, “Do as I say, not as I do.” When people repeatedly see this it leads to them not taking things seriously or no longer caring.
The MDOC has an opportunity to reassess its response to this crisis and carve out a new path forward that reassures incarcerated people they care about their wellbeing. Objectifying incarcerated people and ignoring their inherent dignity during this crisis will not achieve this.
It’s time to explore new options to handling this crisis. Otherwise, as the adage goes, “If we keep doing what we’re doing, we’ll keep getting what we’re getting.” Right now people behind bars are witnessing a horrifying portrait of what that could look like in the weeks to come.
The success or failure of the MDOC’s COVID-19 mitigation and containment strategy is being measured by the number of incarcerated people and staff members contracting the deadly disease and lives lost.
Please keep every incarcerated person and prison staff member infected with COVID-19 in your thoughts and prayers — including their family members. We remain hopeful for as many of their full recoveries as possible.
I also ask that you pray for all those who have lost family members who have succumbed to the deadly virus. #SMPR #AloneTogether#StayHomeStayStrong
(Efrn Paredes, Jr. is a blogger, thought leader, and social justice changemaker. His ongoing series about the COVID-19 crisis in Michigan prisons can be read at http://fb.com/Free.Efren.)
