March 30, 2020

Spotlight on Jails: COVID-19 Mitigation Policies Needed Now

Category: Article Summary

Topic: Public Health Policy and Practice

• Jails in US pose unique challenge to COVID-19 prevention, detection, and mitigation that deserve immediate attention. Most common measures of prevention for the general public, are not feasible in the US jails because of overcrowding, institutional restrictions and lack of funding. Jails contain a high proportion of people with underlying health conditions, increasing risk of severe COVID-19 outcomes. Wurcel et al provide a list of recommendations to facilitate and augment COVID-19 mitigation polices in jails. They further recommend that authorities to come up with evidence-based approaches to contain the outbreak without further isolating an already vulnerable population.

Wurcel et al. (Mar 30, 2020). Spotlight on Jails: COVID-19 Mitigation Policies Needed Now. Preprint downloaded (Mar 30) from Clinical Infectious Disease. https://doi.org/10.1093/cid/ciaa346