No mass testing for Allegheny County Jail despite coronavirus uptick

Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald on Wednesday shrugged off the idea of mass testing at the county jail, where at least two dozen inmates have tested positive for the coronavirus.

About 1,100 inmates have been released since mid-March, the result of growing fears of covid-19 spreading in congregate settings such as jails and prisons.

The District Attorney’s Office along with jail staff and the public defenders’ office have worked since then to identify nonviolent offenders who could be safely released to home confinement.

Fitzgerald said the county has been following the guidance of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention regarding how to deal with cases of the virus among those who are incarcerated.

Still, the number of reported cases at the county jail has tripled since Sunday. The county is reporting on its website coronavirus testing at the jail.

In hard-hit Montgomery County, officials tested the 948 inmates remaining in the county jail. About 177, or 18% of all inmates, tested positive, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. That was about 30 times more than officials thought it would be.

The newspaper reported that 171 of those positive inmates had no symptoms when they were tested.

Fitzgerald noted that the outbreak in Montgomery County is much worse than the coronavirus situation in Allegheny County.

Montgomery County, with a population of just under 831,000, has seen 4,177 covid-19 cases so far, and 329 people there have died from the virus, according to the state Department of Health.

In Allegheny County, where residents number about 1.2 million, there have been 1,273 cases and 86 deaths.

In a report this week by NPR, experts and advocates warned that the virus is likely more rampant behind bars than anyone realizes.

Felicity Rose, of the advocacy group FWD.US, told NPR that a lack of testing in jails is creating a false sense of security.

“We know that it’s spreading among staff and that staff are bringing it into and out of the facilities,” said Rose, the director of research and policy for criminal justice reform. “We know there are people who are asymptomatic and are able to pass it along, but we just don’t know how many. So it’s a ticking time bomb.”

In Tennessee, 583 inmates at the Bledsoe Correctional Complex have tested positive for covid-19. Those inmates account for 99% of Bledsoe County’s 588 total cases. Eight days earlier on April 20, corrections officials had said there were 162 positive cases in the facility, according to ABC News.

In Ohio, 2,028 inmates in the Marion Correctional Institution have tested positive for the virus, and four have died, according to ABC. There are 2,500 inmates total in the facility.