Essential Strategies to Curb COVID-19 Transmission in Prisons and Jails.

As of February 15, 2021, there were more than 464 000 COVID-19 infections and at least 2400 deaths among incarcerated persons and staff members in prisons, jails, and detention centers across the United States. Efforts to prevent and contain outbreaks in correctional facilities have been stymied by entrenched, hyperpunitive attitudes toward people who are incarcerated—held by politicians and members of the public alike—and by prevailing misconceptions that correctional facilities are self-contained. Although prisons and jails appear to be detached from our communities by fences, walls, and bars, their populations are dynamic. Their walls are permeable. Each day, thousands of persons are admitted and released, and staff return home to their families. As a result, disease outbreaks that occur in prisons and jails rarely stay there. In April 2020, nearly 16% of all COVID-19 cases in Illinois were traced back to Chicago’s Cook County Jail.