'They're All Really Afraid': Coronavirus Spreads In Federal Prisons
One of the hardest-hit facilities is in Oakdale, La. "They feel like they're sitting ducks," says Arjeane Thompson, whose boyfriend is an inmate. And staff are working overtime under the strain.
Federal prisons are wrestling with the rapid spread of the coronavirus at more than two dozen facilities across the country in an outbreak that has already claimed the lives of at least seven inmates and infected some 140 more as well as nearly 60 staff.
One of the hardest-hit so far is the Federal Correctional Complex in Oakdale, La., located about a three-hour drive west of New Orleans. It's home to two low-security prisons as well as a minimum security camp, which all told house some 2,000 inmates.
"They're all really afraid," said Arjeane Thompson, whose boyfriend, Brandon Livas, is an inmate at the Oakdale camp. "They feel like they're sitting ducks, really just kind of waiting to get infected because
