A new model developed by a professor at the University of Tennessee and other academics suggests that most models on the coronavirus pandemic have failed to consider one important variable: jail populations.
Most standard COVID-19 models predict that America will experience about 101,000 deaths during the course of the pandemic, but that number increases by 98 percent to 200,000 deaths when jails are accounted for, the new model claims.
The model was developed by Dr. Nina Fefferman at the University of Tennessee, Dr. Eric Lofgren at Washington State University, and Dr. Kristian Lum from the University of Pennsylvania, in collaboration with Aaron Horowitz and Brooke Madubuonwu of the ACLU’s data analytics team.
“Models projecting total U.S. fatalities to be under 100,000 may be underestimating deaths by almost another 100,000 if we continue to operate jails as usual, based on a new epidemiological study completed in partnership between academic researchers and ACLU Analytics. That is, deaths could be double the current projections due to the omission of jails from most public models,” a report released Wednesday claims.
It notes that jails could act as “vectors for the COVID-19 pandemic” because of the constant movement “between jails and the broader community.”
“They will become veritable volcanoes for the spread of the virus. The spread of COVID-19 from jails into the broader community will occur along two vectors that are ignored in typical models,” states the report. It points to the high turnover in jail populations and the roughly 420,000 Americans who work in jails as sources for the spread of the virus.
The report calls for stopping all arrests for everything except the five percent of crimes defined as most serious by the FBI and doubling the rate of release for inmates. If these two steps are taken, the model apparently predicts that as many as 23,000 inmates and 76,000 Americans could be spared.
“The death toll will likely be significant – both in Tennessee jails and in our communities beyond – if dramatic steps aren’t taken quickly to reduce the number of people behind bars,” Hedy Weinberg, ACLU of Tennessee executive director, said in a statement.
“We know that many Tennessee jails are overcrowded and we are hearing reports of inadequate social distancing and a lack of access to soap, hand sanitizer and PPE in Tennessee jails and prisons. Numerous public health experts have warned that coronavirus infections inside jails and prisons will inevitably spread into the community, as this data decisively shows. The pandemic is making the devastating impact of decades of mass incarceration on the health and well-being of our communities – particularly communities of color – all too clear,” she continued.
The model was developed based on data pulled from 1,242 counties in the U.S. with jail populations of at least 100 people.
According to the Tennessee Department of Corrections, 747 inmates had tested positive for COVID-19 as of Monday. By far, the Bledsoe County Correctional Complex accounts for the most cases of COVID-19 among Tennessee inmates. The prison had 576 positive cases as of Monday, making it the eighth-worst cluster of the virus in the country.
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Anthony Gockowski is managing editor of The Minnesota Sun and The Ohio Star. Follow Anthony on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Professor Nina Fefferman” by Professor Nina Fefferman.
I thought lockdown was how you prevented the spread.
More biased propaganda from another liberal. Not worthy of reading.
Another thing to remember is that the build up of the coronavirus in our prisons will not stop at the walls of the penetentiary to infect only staff and inmates. Diseases like this can spread beyond any walls that can hold people. The staff goes home to their families at the end of their shift, shops at stores, and has other interactions with the outside world that can spread the disease. Even if they stayed inside the prison with the inmates at all time, the wind and plumming can transmit this disease outside the wall to nearby neighborhoods of law-abiding citizens. These right-wingers in their zeal not to release any non-violent inmates don’t think about the disease’s ability to penetrates the walls even when inmates cannot.
The older I get (perhaps wiser), I find it difficult to trust “academics.” Although I’m a UT alumnus, with Randy Boyd at the helm, I find my trust falling farther down the ladder. This is when a grain of salt becomes important.
Please note the reference to the “ACLU data and statistics team.” One should probably stop reading there, as the content will be too suspect to use for decision making. Much like the SPLC, they have an overriding agenda that no one except white, male, white crimes criminals should be in prison due to “fairness.”
Sad but they need to be separated from the rest of us. Sorry that incarerationduring a pandemic is now a part of taking resoonsibility for their actions in the past.
The fact that the ACLU is involved makes me question the validity of this model. The fact that the phrase “particularly communities of color” NEEDED to be in the report makes me question it’s purpose.
Yeah, we’re hearing of high infection rates behind bars, but what is the rate of hospitalizations and death in those same places? That is, are inmates getting exposed to the major, nasty deadly version or the minor “just a flu” version of the virus? Even the most respectable of models agree infection is not an automatic death sentence.