Jails and prisons across Pennsylvania are being overwhelmed by the spread of covid-19, and advocates for the incarcerated population fear it will get worse before it gets better.

As the numbers skyrocketed this week, the state Department of Corrections reported that a 77-year-old inmate with pre-existing conditions died on Thursday at the State Correctional Institution at Fayette — a prison that currently has few cases. There have been 39 inmate deaths within the DOC since covid began.

Across Pennsylvania’s state prisons, 2,501 inmates were positive Friday, while 1,116 staff members were as well. Those numbers include 404 women at SCI- Cambridge Springs; 388 inmates at SCI-Laurel Highlands, which houses inmates with special needs or who need long-term care; and 274 positive cases at SCI-Somerset.

In the state Department of Corrections, more than 12,000 tests were also pending.

At the Westmoreland County Prison, 116 of 470 inmates tested positive for the virus Thursday, and two units at the Hempfield jail are on lockdown to try to contain the spread.

At the Allegheny County Jail on the same day, 28 patients were actively positive out of 67 since the pandemic started. But there were also 69 tests pending. As for staff, there are 30 active cases.

And at the Federal Correctional Institution at Loretto, the Bureau of Prisons reported Friday that 609 inmates tested positive out of a population of 860.

It’s the second highest number of positive inmates in the federal system in the country.

“What we’re seeing is, unfortunately, exactly what we predicted,” said Alexandra Morgan-Kurtz, the managing attorney for the Pittsburgh office of the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project. “It shouldn’t have gotten to this point.”

Witold Walczak, the legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, called what’s happening now, “imminently predictable.”

“The growth is exponential,” he said.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, Walczak said advocates have been calling for the release of vulnerable inmates, who may have pre-existing conditions that make them particularly susceptible to the virus.

But given the congregate setting of correctional facilities, as well as a general lack of sanitary conditions, ventilation and an inability to socially distance, he continued, everyone is at risk.

Often in prisons — like at FCI-Loretto — inmates are held in a dormitory setting with as many as 70 people in a room, sometimes with triple stacked bunk beds only a few feet apart.

“None of the risk-mitigation precautions are in place,” Walczak said.

At FCI-Loretto, inmates who tested positive were being housed with others who were negative, and there were cots everywhere, including in the day room, visiting rooms and TV rooms, several inmates’ loved ones told the Tribune-Review.

There is limited medical care, said Aneatra Brunson, whose 33-year-old husband tested positive there on Wednesday.

“It’s just really upsetting,” she said. “He said the quarantine room he’s in is crowded and filthy.

“‘Nobody comes to check on us,’” he told her. “‘It’s like a scene from the Walking Dead.’”

“They keep coughing, and they’re two or three feet away from each other,” said Katie Newton, whose son is an inmate there.

Newton’s son, who is overweight and has high blood pressure, tested positive three weeks ago. Now, she said, he is recovering.

“People just don’t understand what goes on in these prisons,” she said. “If society actually knew what was going on in there, I think they would change their mind about how they’re treated.”

She has seen letters written by inmates at Loretto pleading for medical care.

“These grown men were actually begging for help,” Newton said. “It shouldn’t be that way. There’s a lot of good people who make mistakes and go to prison.

“They don’t deserve a death sentence.”

A spokesman for U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey said he has been made aware of the high infection rate at Loretto.

“Staff members have been in touch with family members and friends of inmates at FCI Loretto and have requested more information from the Bureau of Prisons,” said Steve Kelly. “Beyond this, we have no further information to share at this time.”

The rapid increase in cases in the state prison system prompted the Pennsylvania DOC on Friday to announce it was starting to reorganize the system to improve mitigation efforts.

They called it a “13-day reset” to maximize bed space.

Included in the reorganization is a mission change for SCI Smthfield, which will now be a reception facility for new commitments and serve as a regional infirmary for male inmates who do not have covid.

“Just as we see a surge in community covid-19 cases, our corrections/parole supervision system is experiencing a surge in cases. As a result, we are taking advantage of the nearly 6,000 decrease in our inmate population we’ve experienced since March to reorganize and reset our system,” said DOC Secretary John Wetzel. “We look at this as a time of cleaning, healing and strengthening our system.”

Wetzel said in a news release they are continuing with aggressive mitigation efforts. The secretary noted, too, that the state Department of Corrections rate of inmate deaths from covid is lower than other Pennsylvania long-term care facilities, and is lower than expected given the infection rate in Pennsylvania.

“I’ve directed our staff to act aggressively and quickly when inmates report influenza-like illnesses, and that includes isolating and quarantining inmates, locking down units or entire prisons as needed, conducting regular cleanings and even 72-hour deep cleanings in order to protect staff and inmates,” Wetzel said.

At the Allegheny County Jail, Walczak said that when the population decreased there in the spring, the administration could have spread the remaining inmates out to ensure proper distancing. Instead, he said, they closed entire units and kept inmates in tight quarters.

“That’s an easy, common-sense measure that’s going to save lives and save you money,” Walczak said. “Yet, time and time again, they don’t do it.”

Correctional facilities will claim that they are following guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Walczak said, but that’s because the guidance for jails and prisons says to “socially distance to the extent you can do it.

“They say they’re in compliance because ‘we can’t do it,’” he continued. “They’re all saying, ‘we’re doing the best we can under bad circumstances,’ which is not true.”

Both Morgan-Kurtz and Walczak criticized the correctional system for failing to do enough testing, contact tracing and quarantining.

The lack of risk mitigation has now caught up with the corrections system in Pennsylvania, Walczak said.

“Once the virus is in, it spread like wildfire,” he said. “That has a cascading effect from staff on down.”

“It increases the burden on community hospitals,” Morgan-Kurtz said.

The larger the incarcerated population, Walczak agreed, the greater the risk for everyone.

“The only way you’re going to prevent that is to let more people out so they have the means to socially distance the folks that remain there,” Walczak said. “Unless it’s Jack the Ripper, why aren’t you going to let these folks out?”

He suggested that at county jails — where the majority of the population is either pre-trial or serving short sentences — more population reductions could be done.

“Now is the time we need people to pay attention,” Morgan-Kurtz said, suggested that state and federal legislators, as well as the governor, could work on plans for early, or compassionate release.

“All these things we’re saying are basic public health,” Walczak said. “They don’t even try.

“I don’t know if they’re overwhelmed or they don’t care or somewhere in between.”

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