The Oregon Department of Corrections Amid Covid-19 (Part Seven)
For inmates in the Oregon State Penitentiary, there is nowhere to hide.
BY MICHAEL D. KELL
PART ONE (3/26)
PART TWO (4/15)
PART THREE (4/23)
PART FOUR (5/13)
PART FIVE (5/14)
PART SIX (5/26)
PART SEVEN (8/14)
PART EIGHT (9/29)
FIRST, I MUST apologize to anyone who has been following the column for the fact that I’ve taken such a long respite. My waning health dictated a break. That being said, given recent events, I felt the need to give an update.
Staying abreast of the news, the informed individual notices two rather disturbing facts. First, the excellent opportunity for mutation (via long, uninterrupted chains of infection) our country’s populace is affording the COVID-19 pathogen. At least a dozen unique genomes of the virus loose in the transmission pool have now been identified. Second, it also appears that there is no long-lasting immunity presented by the human autonomic immune system. Mr. Jubal Ortiz of Hidalgo County in South Texas died at age twenty-seven of a second bout with this disease. And then we have one of the world’s leading epidemiologists, Dr. Anthony Fauci, saying, “It is unlikely we will ever eradicate this virus.”
Oregon’s Governor Kate Brown made it perfectly clear that new COVID mitigation guidelines going into effect on Friday, July 24, 2020, were “mandatory,” “enforceable,” and that there would be “no exceptions.” I mentioned in the last update (#6) that the staff at Oregon State Penitentiary were wearing face coverings. That only lasted a couple of days. Only now, after the Governor’s latest order, are penitentiary staff being forced, obviously against their will, to wear utility masks at work. The administration still operates a dining room that regularly exceeds 250 people and they are still operating a recreational building and shower area, simultaneously serving well over a hundred people each, several times a day. All of the non-essential Oregon Corrections Enterprises shops are still operating at well over the 100-person indoor venue limit, as well. It has become apparent that the logistical initiative necessary to implement proper mitigation strategies capable of controlling the rate of COVID-19 infection within our state’s correctional facilities will not be forthcoming. With the near total lack of mitigation strategies being employed, or imposed, this pathogen is poised to repeatedly inundate our prison populations. In light of their apparent lack of concern, you would think most of the staff, particularly the administrators, still think the whole thing is a hoax. In fact I recently overheard a Health Services Division nursing staffer refer to COVID-19 as “just another flu.”
I’d like to quote a statement by a practitioner in the medical corps I saw on a national news syndicate recently: “The enemy is inside the wire. And there is nowhere to hide.” This statement is particularly poignant for me given the environment I find myself in today. There is much wire at hand—razor wire, that is—and there is indeed nowhere to go or hide. Given the demographics of my fellow prisoners and the correlation of data within these groups, we can eventually expect very high hospitalization and mortality rates.
Something must be done now, or our state government will one day be held accountable for its inaction.
A final note: the next time you look at a map of Oregon showing the infection hotspots, please consider my predictions in the original column (3/26/20) regarding the potential for corrections staff to bring the virus out into the public. The local communities are as much at risk as the prisons themselves.
Michael D. Kell is an inmate at Oregon State Penitentiary.
