A Year Into The Pandemic, The Incarcerated Among The Most Vulnerable

Short Wave

NPR

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🗓️ 12 March 2021

⏱️ 13 minutes

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Summary

In the year since the pandemic began, the coronavirus has severely impacted inmates and staff in U.S. jails and prisons. According to The Marshall Project, in the last year, over 380,000 prisoners tested positive for the coronavirus. Of those, 2,400 died. The close quarters make social distancing nearly impossible, leaving the incarcerated population vulnerable.

Josiah Bates, staff writer at TIME, reflects on how the pandemic has played out behind bars — in both jails and prisons. We also hear from Ronnie Hoagland Jr., who contracted COVID-19 while incarcerated in a Texas county jail.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to shortwave from NPR.
0:05.0	Hello, you have a call at no expense to you from
0:08.0	Ronnie, I would.
0:10.0	And in the at NACCO Doaches County Jail to accept this call.
0:14.0	This is Ronnie Hogan, Jr.
0:16.0	Five.
0:17.0	I've only got three minutes on this phone call left.
0:20.0	Ronnie has been incarcerated in the NACCO Doaches County Jail in Texas since the end of June.
0:25.0	Within weeks of arriving,
0:27.0	he started experiencing symptoms of COVID-19.
0:30.0	Febrd sweating.
0:33.0	I was laying my phone.
0:35.0	Two, three nights.
0:37.0	I was okay, I brought a place to medical request into medical.
0:41.0	And when a jail nurse checked his vitals,
0:44.0	the nurse was shocked enough to order me to go to the hospital.
0:48.0	My heart rate was 37 to 38 weeks per minute.
0:53.0	I had been so dehydrated already throughout this facility.
0:57.0	He says a coronavirus test then came back positive.
1:01.0	And it was a terrifying experience.
1:04.0	Ronnie felt like there was nothing he could really do to protect himself from contracting COVID-19.
1:11.0	Inside these walls, there was never a six foot social distancing.
	...

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