Release All Non-Violent Offenders Now

Release, test, and put the infected in quarantine. Release all non-violent offenders now. This should have been done weeks ago. Don't dole out death sentences when you don't mean to.

Over 70 percent of tested inmates in federal prisons have COVID-19 Michael Fleming never got to say goodbye to his father. He didn’t know his dad was fading away on a ventilator, diagnosed with coronavirus at the federal prison where he was serving time for a drug charge. .......... But the first word the family received of the father’s illness was the day he died, from a prison chaplain asking if the body should be cremated and where the ashes should be sent. ....... out of 2,700 tests systemwide, nearly 2,000 have come back positive, strongly suggesting there are far more COVID-19 cases left uncovered. ....... As part of the plan to slow the spread of the coronavirus, officials have limited inmate movement, set up tents to increase bed space, isolated inmates at some prisons and identified others for possible home confinement. ........ “They are not testing anyone” ........ inmate Guillermo Zegarra-Martinez told his attorney in an email that his cellmate tested positive for the coronavirus and was put in isolation for more than two weeks. ...... But Zegarra-Martinez was not tested even though he was shaking in his cell with a fever during nights while experiencing pain throughout his body in the week before his cellmate was taken out and the week after ......... The sick inmate was taken out of the cell only “because he was coughing on the face of the guy” who took his temperature ........ Advocates and even prison guards have been calling for reforms to head off outbreaks in a prison system plagued for years by violence, misconduct and staffing shortages. Nearly 350 staff members have tested positive. ....... But Hawk Sawyer said the Bureau of Prisons is prepared with ample amount of personal protective equipment and supplies, including soap and disinfectant...... “We are creating and making the masks for the staff, as well as the shields and hand sanitizer and all kinds of things,” she said.

Coronavirus News (81)

A CITY NURSE Healing in the I.C.U. during COVID-19. ...... These days, the days of COVID-19, Chaplin and Cunningham inhabit a twilight world that is celebrated by their fellow New Yorkers but only faintly seen. ....... Lenox Hill normally has four I.C.U.s; now, with the coronavirus raging through the city, nearly the entire hospital is a critical-care unit. .........

Chaplin and Cunningham’s twelve-hour shifts are a blur of sickness, urgency, risk, and loss. Trapped by necessity behind their masks and face shields, inhaling their own exhalations, they experience ferocious headaches. Moments of relief are rare and fleeting.

.......... The death toll is relentless, and older doctors and nurses have told Chaplin that the only thing comparable to COVID-19 was the height of the AIDS crisis. ........ In those days, no one was “sheltering in place.” Now

every patient, every colleague, every surface, every friend is a potential threat

. Chaplin, whose roommate left for the relative safety of New Jersey weeks ago, comes home to solitude. .............. “When I wear a uniform, I put it on and take on my nurse self,” Cady Chaplin says. “But you lose your personal eccentricities, so I like to wear weird T-shirts underneath my scrubs, even if it’s just for myself.” ............ Coming down from these shifts, hearing codes all day on the intercom, it’s hard to get out of that fight-or-flight response. ........... She doesn’t want to be glorified all of a sudden. “This is what we trained to do,” she says. “This is what we do. That was true a year ago, and it will be true a year from now.” ...........