159 inmates test positive for coronavirus at Miami jail

At least 159 inmates at Florida’s Metro West Detention Center have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, according to court documents filed by Miami-Dade County over the weekend.

The figure is a significant increase from the 59 positive cases across all three county jails the local corrections department reported a week ago, according to the Miami Herald.

The documents were filed in connection with a lawsuit by inmates seeking release due to the pandemic and the risk of infection. Testing in general has expanded in the last week, with the county testing more than 700 inmates altogether. The county has also tested 72 staff members, 16 of whom have tested positive.

Nearly 400 inmates at Metro West “are being quarantined as a result of possible exposure to another individual who has COVID-19 or who has exhibited COVID-19 symptoms,” the country attorney’s office wrote, saying that a total of 485 inmates have been tested, according to the newspaper.

It remains unclear how many positive cases were found in the other two county jails, the Pre-Trial Detention Center and the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center. The three facilities currently have about 3,200 inmates.

The spread of the virus in prisons and jails, where conditions make social distancing all but impossible, is an increased concern nationwide. An analysis of inmates in the Arkansas, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia prison systems found that of 3,277 inmates who have tested positive, 96 percent showed no symptoms.

Florida is one of several states, including New York and Texas, that are only testing inmates displaying symptoms of the virus.

“Prison agencies are almost certainly vastly undercounting the number of COVID cases among incarcerated persons,” Michele Deitch, a corrections specialist and senior lecturer at the University of Texas, told Reuters.

“Just as the experts are telling us in our free-world communities, the only way to get ahead of this outbreak is through mass testing.”