NEW YORK — The COVID-19 infection rate in city jails, including at Rikers Island, has hit a staggering new high – with almost 37% of prisoners recently tested for the virus coming back positive, data released by the city shows.
The new numbers — measuring a seven-day test positivity through Sunday — come two weeks after the outgoing city jails commissioner warned of a “crisis level” of COVID cases bearing down on the population at the troubled Rikers Island complex.
The data also reflects a sharp increase from last Wednesday, when the seven-day rate reached a then-high of 29%.
The Legal Aid Society, which provides free legal services to low-income criminal defendants, is calling for prosecutors to stop seeking high bails and for judges to order the release of prisoners as the omicron strain of the virus spreads.
“Omicron is ripping through city jails, yet judges, district attorneys and the city have all refused to implement the only meaningful solution to prevent further spread, suffering and possible loss of life: decarceration,” said Legal Aid’s Tina Luongo. “We call on all these stakeholders, including elected officials, to do right by their constituents, New Yorkers, to immediately decrease the local jail population.”
Less than half of the city’s jail population have gotten a single shot of the COVID vaccine, and just 38.5% are fully vaccinated, the data shows.
The jail positivity rate is slightly higher than the city’s overall seven-day positivity rate, which hit 33.5% as of Monday. Unlike the jail population, though, a strong majority of city residents, 72.5%, is fully vaccinated, with nearly 82% having received at least one dose of the vaccine.
In a letter last month, outgoing Correction Department Commissioner Vincent Schiraldi warned the city’s public defender services that COVID rates were rising fast, and past efforts by the department have not slowed the surge.
“Considerable efforts were made at the beginning of the pandemic to reduce the jail population immediately in order to avert a major humanitarian catastrophe,” Schiraldi wrote. “All indications suggest that our jail population faces an equal or greater level of risk from COVID now as it did at the start of the pandemic.”
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