Doctor: Low virus rate in prisons might be luck

Early in the coronavirus pandemic, many believed the virus would sweep through prisons in the state leaving behind a trail of avoidable death and destruction.

But just seven individuals of the more than 12,000 who were incarcerated at the beginning of the pandemic have died from the virus. And mass testing of offenders completed by the Department of Correction this week revealed that while 12 percent of the population has contracted the virus, most of those infections have been asymptomatic.

Of the 832 who tested positive during the mass testing, just two showed symptoms.

So how did the state contain the virus, avoid hospitalizations and mostly avoid death in a congregate setting like prisons?

In the view of one epidemiologist: they got lucky.

“Either they did something right or they got very lucky,” said Dr. Robert Heimer, a professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Medicine who has studied the potential for outbreak in the prison system since the onset of the virus. “The 800 positive and limited number of deaths, those two statistics seem irreconcilable unless they were very lucky ... I wish I had a compelling and logical reason for these results.”

He added, “But what I do have is a great sense of relief.”

Heimer, who worked with several advocacy groups that urged the state early in the pandemic to release as many incarcerated individuals as possible, said he and other public health experts advised the Lamont administration to release as many of the “at risk for COVID and low risk for criminality as they could,” something Lamont declined to do.

The results were in addition to 510 inmates who tested positive before May 13, for a total of 1,342 who have tested positive — about 12 percent of the average population over the last three months. That’s compared to a roughly 10 percent positivity rate for the general population that has been tested. About 9 percent of cases in the general population have resulted in death.

Just one person with symptoms remains in the hospital, and 173 have been discharged. That’s a hospitalization rate of about 13 percent, compared to 21 percent of the general population that tested positive for the virus.

Clearly, part of the reason for the outcome was measures the department took, said Karen Martucci, a spokeswoman for the

Department of Correction. But they, too, were surprised by the results of the testing.

“Because this is just so new, we didn’t know what to expect. As we told the offenders they were positive, they were just as surprised as we were,” she said. “We thought we would see a higher rate at jails just given the nature of more people coming in from outside. As of right now, as we speak, we have zero symptomatic positives in the state, and haven’t had a staff positive in a month. But knock on wood because this isn’t over ... The problem with this virus is that testing on Monday means nothing by the end of the week.”

Department strategy

Martucci said the department divided incarcerated individuals into three categories upon testing. Those who tested and were negative remained in their regular unit, those who tested positive and were asymptomatic were moved to a separate unit to quarantine for two weeks while their vitals were monitored daily. The department treated the cohort of inmates who declined to be tested as though they were asymptomatic, but did not house them with those who had actually been tested.

Those who were symptomatic were transferred to Northern Correctional Institution, a maximum security prison in Somers. All of the offenders who tested positive were isolated for two weeks. None beyond the two who showed symptoms developed symptoms during their monitoring periods, Martucci said, and most have returned to their normal units.

“Up at Northern, we had people who felt miserable, and then others who just couldn’t taste or smell,” Martucci said. “The symptoms were all over the place. There was no pattern.”

Heimer noted that early testing in March and April frequently resulted in false negatives or false positives, so urged the state to approach the overwhelmingly positive results with caution.

While the state did not engage in a mass release of inmate, the prison population has fallen under 10,000 for the first time in nearly 30 years as the number of offenders in the system has fallen by almost 2,500 since March 1. That means the state has halved its prison population since it peaked at 19,894 people on February 1, 2008. The reduction freed up substantial space to relocate and separate inmates during the crisis, Martucci said.

The reduction was achieved mostly by utilizing standard release procedures. An analysis by Hearst Connecticut Media in early June showed that most of the reduction was due to a sharp decline in new imprisonments, although hundreds have been released early amid the threat of coronavirus.

In all, the department tested 9,504 inmates between May 13 and June 25 in an effort to check for the illness in every prisoner. About 440 opted out, mostly at Osborn Correctional Institute in Somers, and those inmates are being offered tests this week, the department said Tuesday. Of those who were tested at Osborn, 146 inmates tested positive for the virus and 105 were asymptomatic, which resulted in an immediate lockdown of the facility at that time.

Percentages of positive results varies widely, from 45 percent at the Brooklyn Correctional Institute to three or fewer total cases at four separate facilities, including the largest, MacDougall-Walker, in Suffield, with 1,862 offenders. The department is still testing its staff at all facilities, but reported that it has been more than a month since a staff member has tested positive for the virus.