ATLANTA — A dearth of reliable information about COVID-19 in jails is preventing health officials and policymakers across the nation from learning the true impact of the pandemic on incarcerated people and law enforcement employees.
That lack of data about infections, hospitalizations and deaths, experts say, could hamstring officials responsible for preventing the spread of diseases in America’s more than 3,000 local lockups.
“For the most part, we just don’t know what is happening behind bars. And sheriffs are given the authority — and state departments of health have kind of stayed out of their way — to decide what is the appropriate scope of services, what kind of data should be reported and what constitutes inadequate care,” said Dr. Homer Venters, a physician and epidemiologist who served as the chief medical officer for the New York City jail system. “So it is a really deficient and scattered system that we have created.”
