The bureau found that an employee assigned to the special confinement unit tested positive, but this employee had no contact with staff members involved in the recent executions, she said. “While a number of inmates have tested positive for Covid-19 at USP Terre Haute in recent weeks, many of these inmates are asymptomatic or exhibiting mild symptoms,” she said. Of the 1,239 total inmates at the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute reported by the Bureau of Prisons, the agency has disclosed 252 active coronavirus cases. The population of death row prisoners there, all male, includes fewer than 50 men — a number that shrank significantly after the Trump administration’s latest string of executions. “It’s the Bureau of Prisons’ job to keep them safe and healthy,” she said.

Source: New York Times December 21, 2020 23:29 UTC