Inadequate testing, resistance to contact tracing, and poor social distancing practices likely made the thirteen federal executions in 2020-2021 COVID-19 superspreader events, the
Associated Press has concluded. In the ten days after the December 10, 2020 execution of Brandon Bernard, 70% of prisoners on federal death row and hundreds of others incarcerated in the
Terre Haute Correctional Complex where the executions took place tested positive for COVID-19. At least a dozen others who participated in the executions, including media witnesses, a spiritual advisor, and correctional staff who traveled from across the country for the executions, also contracted the disease.
The protocols surrounding the executions ignored public health advice for reducing the spread of the virus and warnings from medical experts about the risks. “These are the type of high-risk superspreader events that the [American Medical Association] and [the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] have be
As the Trump administration was nearing the end of an unprecedented string of executions, 70% of death row inmates were sick with COVID-19. Guards were ill. Traveling prisons staff on the execution team had the virus. So did media witnesses, who may have unknowingly infected others when they returned home because they were never told about the spreading cases.