Over 1/3 of Inmates at San Quentin Have COVID. Inhumane Orderlies Ignored Warnings to Reduce 120% Overcrowded Prison & Locked Up the Infected in Dirty, Shared Quarantine Cells w/o Electrical Power

From [HERE] and [HERE] Nearly 200 death-row prisoners in California have been infected by a coronavirus outbreak that, news reports say, has “torn through” the nation’s largest death row. 

Fueled by an influx of infected prisoners during a prison transfer at the end of May 2020, the COVID-19 virus has exploded through San Quentin State Prison (click to enlarge picture). The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases among the incarcerated soared past 1,300 Thursday and more than 100 prison staff members have the virus, according to data from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.including 196 on death row. More than a quarter of the state’s 725 death-row prisoners have now tested positive for the disease.

Anger and frustration mounts among prisoners locked in small cells for days at a time. Showers are infrequent. So is phone access. Families hunt for scraps of information about incarcerated loved ones who may have fallen ill.

And it’s worse for the nearly 1,400 prisoners with the virus, well over a third of the entire population at San Quentin. Incarcerated sources say the quarantine cells are dirty and don’t have electrical power, so small amenities, such as the ability to heat food and water, don’t exist there. Incarcerated sources now under quarantine tell NBC Bay Area many are forced to share cells, despite being COVID positive.

The outbreak killed Richard Stitely, 71, who was found dead in his cell on June 24 after exhibiting symptoms of the coronavirus. He was the first condemned California prisoner to die of COVID-19. Stitely had refused testing prior to his death, and prison officials would not confirm his cause of death. However, Marin County officials reported on June 29 that Stitely had posthumously tested positive for COVID-19. 

Eighty-nine San Quentin staff members have also tested positive. 

Marylou Hillberg, a lawyer who is representing two men on death row, noted that California’s death-sentenced prisoners are especially vulnerable to COVID-19. “It’s an aging population on Death Row,” she said. “There’s a lot of folks who have medical conditions that make them especially fragile: heart disease, lung disease, diabetes, hypertension.” She added that she feels “totally helpless to do anything” for her clients in the midst of the outbreak.

In one month, San Quentin went from zero known infections of the novel coronavirus to more than 1,000. On May 30, 121 men were transferred from the California Institution for Men in Chino, which at the time had the state’s largest number of infected prisoners. Though prison officials claimed the men had been tested prior to the transfer, many had been tested weeks before the move without being retested. A federal judge overseeing medical treatment in California’s prisons called the transfer a “significant failure.” San Quentin has now surpassed Chino as the prison facility with the most COVID-19 cases, and it accounts for more than 20% of the total 4,800 confirmed cases in the entire California prison system. Twenty-three prisoner fatalities have been attributed to COVID-19 across the state, including 16 at the facility in Chino.

As of April 30, 2020, San Quentin was incarcerating people at 122.5% of its design capacity, with 3,776 occupants. [MORE]

Public health experts from the University of California–Berkeley and the University of California–San Francisco warned prison officials in mid-June that San Quentin’s population would need to be cut by 50% to avoid a major outbreak. Some prisoners have received expedited parole, and prisons have halted intakes from local jails, but the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has not undertaken the kind of efforts recommended by public health experts. According to San Quentin officials, “Air-conditioned tent structures are in the process of being set up to help provide on-site locations for additional physical distancing in housing and for medical triage.”