Why it’s important to reduce COVID-19 in prisons
Prisons represent a public health and human rights crisis during the pandemic.
By Shaheen Pasha
Just over wo years ago, Adnan Khan was incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison in California. Serving a sentence of 25 years to life at the time for felony murder, Khan stood side-by-side with other incarcerated men putting together packs for a hygiene drive for homeless youths items many of the men paid for out of their accounts. It was one of the many ways, Khan said, that the prison residents aimed to give back despite their incarceration.
Jails and prisons were hit hard by Covid-19 and experts say they need to be prioritized for the vaccines
Yesenia Lara spoke to her uncle on the phone nearly every day until May 1. Raul Rodriguez, 61, who was in a Texas county jail after a DUI conviction, had struggled with alcoholism but was a loving man who was “outgoing, always laughing,” she said.
He told her there were about 15 to 20 other inmates in his cell and that they cut up shirts to use as face masks. He mentioned his throat hurt.
And then she didn’t hear from him again. A little more than two weeks after their last conversation, she said authorities notified her family he had died of Covid-19.