Spotlight on Jails: COVID-19 Mitigation Policies Needed Now

Clinical Infectious Diseases

Wurcel, Alysse G.; Dauria, Emily; Zaller, Nicholas; Nijhawan, Ank; Beckwith, Curt; Nowotny, Kathryn; Brinkley-Rubinstein, Lauren 

Dear Editor,

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare institutions and public health experts are mobilizing to develop mitigation protocols based on the experiences of other countries, including China, South Korea, and Italy. Compared to these countries, the US has a higher incarceration rate, with 10.6 million people booked into jails each year.2 Jails pose a unique set of challenges to COVID-19 prevention, detection, and management mitigation that deserves immediate attention.