Many of those deaths have been at the Arizona State Prison complex in Tucson. It s very hard, because we were scared. We were praying that he wouldn t get the virus, said Lillian Coppess, whose husband, Wellington, is incarcerated at the Arizona State Prison on South Wilmot Road.
For Coppess, who heads up the Arizona S.T.A.R.T Project, each day is filled with uncertainty about what the future may hold for her husband.
There have been more than 1,300 COVID-19 cases at the Wilmot facility since the start of the pandemic, and ten inmates there have died. Since the beginning, he told me like at the beginning of April, I remember him telling me, I am going to get it because it s impossible to social-distance in prison. It is just impossible, Coppess told the Digging Deeper team.