Lax Masking, Short Quarantines, Ignored Symptoms: Inside a Prison Coronavirus Outbreak in ‘Disbeliever Country.’
The number of COVID-19 cases have spiked in recent weeks across New York’s state prisons, including at Greene Correctional Facility in Coxsackie. According to the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision’s website, 137 Greene prisoners had tested positive and 92 had recovered as of Oct. 28.
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Multiple accounts from inside the prison suggest that the cases are concentrated in one dorm—D-1. Residents we interviewed said that on Oct. 23, about 40 of the 50 men who lived there tested positive.
The prison agency claims to have complied with guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and the New York State Department of Health. But Greene residents described a response rife with inadequate quarantining, ignored symptoms, lack of treatment, men moving around the facility during the outbreak and inconsistent mask-wearing among staff and residents.
Three men from D-1, Jermaine Archer, Cecil Myers and Eric Manners, shared their stories. The Department of Corrections and Community Supervision would
