![]() On any given day, a combined 2.3 million people are incarcerated in this country. Why have you and other activists argued that refusing to release incarcerated people is essentially sentencing them to death for being poor? It is an exceedingly narrow group that the resolution itself acknowledges is not responding to those most at risk. But it only provides relief to people convicted of non-violent drug and alcohol offenses and those who have release dates of June 30 or earlier-people who should not have been in prison to begin with. The governor’s resolution explicitly identifies “elderly people and those with underlying conditions” as particularly vulnerable. The decision came in response to a Washington State Supreme Court ruling requiring the governor to take “all necessary steps” to prevent the spread of Covid-19 among incarcerated people. In April, Inslee announced plans to release some 950 incarcerated people convicted of non-violent offenses from state prisons. Incarceration also creates or worsens a variety of health conditions that put people of all age groups at risk. About 38% of the state’s prison population is in a high-risk group for developing serious complications from the virus just by virtue of their age and sentence length. Washington also abolished parole in the late 1980s, creating a bottleneck that keeps people in prison for much longer than they were 30 years ago. The prison population has gotten older over last three decades of mass incarceration as sentences have grown longer. The state of Washington, like every other state, should be moving to let as many people out of prison as quickly as possible. When you add a communicable disease to this equation, you have the potential to exacerbate a major public health problem. These are already people that tend not to have health insurance or ready access to medical care. At jails and detention centers, there’s a constant churn of people-the vast majority of whom come from communities that are already underserved by society. In some facilities, there are dorms instead of cells, with people sleeping next to each other on cots. You have cramped quarters with, in many cases, two to three people in a cell. The physical conditions themselves are conducive to the spread of illness. You have written that “prisons are a blight upon public health.” Why should prisons be at the forefront of the response to the virus? The virus also reveals in the starkest terms, Berger says, the injustice of America’s system of mass incarceration. Crowded and unsanitary conditions could lead to large numbers of inmate deaths and pose a high risk of spreading the virus beyond prison walls. The 6,099 average new vaccine doses on 6/17 through 6/21 are lower than the 8,241 average new vaccine doses on 6/15 through 6/16.The health and safety of both incarcerated people and the broader community required quick action, they argued. The 93 average new hospitalizations on 6/17 through 6/21 are higher than the 72 average new hospitalizations on 6/15 through 6/16. The eight average new deaths on 6/17 through 6/21 are lower than the 16 average new deaths on 6/15 through 6/16. The 2,049 average new cases on 6/17 through 6/21 are lower than the 2,618 average new cases on 6/15 through 6/16. The department of health says the negative results still aren't being fully accounted for so we have to use caution in drawing conclusions. The 8,122 average new vaccine doses on 6/22 through 6/23 are higher than the 6,099 average new vaccine doses on 6/17 through 6/21. No new hospitalizations were reported today which implies some kind of data or reporting issue at the department of health. The 15 average new deaths on 6/22 through 6/23 are higher than the eight average new deaths on 6/17 through 6/21. The 2,759 average new cases on 6/22 through 6/23 are higher than the 2,049 average new cases on 6/17 through 6/21. If a lot of people start following my daily posts over there I may stop posting on r/CoronavirusWA. I am making a duplicate daily post on r/CoronavirusWAData/ as an experiment. I always appreciate Reddit gold, but if you want to do something more substantive please make a donation to the PB&J scholarship fund, intended to help kids who are late bloomers. NOTE: I've had a number of people reach out to me asking how to show thanks for these posts. Look at my Google docs spreadsheet or the DOH data dashboard to see the probable numbers (which include unconfirmed antigen test results). ![]() NOTE: I am only reporting confirmed PCR test cases.
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