The COVID-19 pandemic has severely limited the kind of contact incarcerated people have with the outside world. Courts have gone remote, in-person visits
Half of inmates at Manchester’s Valley Street Jail test positive
The state s largest county jail, in Manchester, has a little over 200 inmates. Less than 15 have been tested for COVID-19 since the pandemic began.
Published: 1/12/2021 6:54:41 PM
Rey DeJesus has been at Valley Street Jail since February, awaiting a trial for felony charges. He and his wife, Krystal DeJesus, talk on the phone every day, and a few weeks ago, he called to say people in the jail were getting sick.
Krystal DeJesus, a nursing assistant, gave her husband some advice:
“I said, ‘You know, the COVID is bad; it’s airborne,’ ” she recalled. ” ‘We’re wearing masks out here. You guys have no masks?’ He said, ‘No, they haven’t provided us with no masks at all.’”
Listen to the broadcast story
DeJesus said her husband finally got a mask in late December, nine months into the pandemic. It was also around the same time that he and most inmates in his unit tested positive for COVID-19.
Now, they’re all quarantined in their cells, with one to two hours a day out to call lawyers or family. DeJesus says her husband is sick, and that despite having asthma, he hasn’t been given his inhaler. DeJesus says it got so bad, he ended up in the hospital a few days ago.
“Every day I’m wondering if he’s going to call me and it’s going to be worse,” she said. “I’m worried I’m going to bury my husband due to something that could have been prevented.”
The New Hampshire ACLU and others are expressing relief that state health officials are now in charge of managing a COVID-19 outbreak at the Valley Street Jail in Manchester.
Earlier updates:
Update: Thursday, Dec. 31, 7:01 p.m.
The state has released new data about how COVID-19 vaccines are being allocated.
Of the over 64,000 doses that have arrived in New Hampshire, about a third have actually been administered to high-risk health care workers, first responders, and people associated with long-term care facilities.
That means that about 18 percent of the state s highest-risk population has been vaccinated so far. The state says it hopes to have all of them immunized with at least the first of the two shots by the end of January.
Another 17,000 shots are expected to arrive next week.
- Jordyn Haime