News Alaska’s largest prison faces Covid-19 outbreak

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Nearly every inmate in Alaska’s largest prison has contracted Covid-19 as prisons nationwide reached their highest level of positive cases this month.

A spokesperson for the state’s department of corrections, Sarah Gallagher, told the Anchorage Daily News that an estimated 1,115 prisoners of the total 1,236 prisoners at the Goose Creek correctional center had tested positive.

The correctional center near Anchorage reported its first case of Covid-19 in November. As of Monday, 112 cases were considered to be active, Gallagher said. More than 40% of the state’s total inmate population have contracted the disease and five prisoners have died statewide.

The US is home to 22% of the world’s prison population and public health experts have called for the release of medically fragile and older prisoners, people nearing the end of their sentence and low-risk individuals. Advocates have also called for the release of people incarcerated because they cannot afford cash bail, a payment to the court required to leave jail while awaiting a hearing.

Releases have been slow, however. In the first three months of the pandemic, more than 10,000 federal prisoners applied for compassionate release, but only 156 requests were approved, according to the AP and Marshall Project.

Nearly all inmates in Alaska’s largest prison have contracted Covid-19

About 1,115 prisoners of the the total 1,236 prisoners at the Goose Creek correctional center had tested positive

www.theguardian.com