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<\/div>As the deadly COVID-19 coronavirus spreads worldwide<\/a>, it continues to leave a trail of destruction in China, where efforts to care for the sick and curtail new infections are straining health care resources<\/a>.<\/p> Now, in a grim update, The<\/em> New York Times <\/em>reports that<\/a> the novel pathogen is tearing through the country’s prison system as well — a troubling hint that even in its epicenter, we still don’t understand the full toll the epidemic’s actually had.<\/p> Chinese authorities acknowledged on Friday that they knew of at least 500 infections among prisoners and guards. A particular guard with a bad cough may have been a superspreader, according to the Times.<\/em><\/p> On Friday, state-owned Chinese newspaper People’s Daily <\/em>reported that<\/a> the government had dispatched an investigative team to evaluate the scope of the problem.<\/p> Benjamin Cowling, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Hong Kong, told the Times<\/em> that prisons are a particularly grave setting for an epidemic, because inmates are housed in close proximity — and even authorities have restricted access to isolated housing that could prevent transmission.<\/p> “It’s a really difficult situation to prevent transmission from occurring,” he told the paper.<\/p> And the situation may be even worse than it appears, according to Human Rights Watch spokesperson Yaqiu Wang, as it could compound already-poor medical care in the Chinese prison system.<\/p> “Prisoners are routinely denied of access to adequate medical care even during normal times,” Wang told the Times<\/em>. “Now with medical resources stretched to the limit in many areas in China, it is hard to imagine prisoners’ medical needs would be a priority of the government.”<\/p> The post The Deadly Coronavirus Is Tearing Through Chinese Prisons<\/a> appeared first on Futurism<\/a>.<\/p> Here is the original post: As the deadly COVID-19 coronavirus spreads worldwide , it continues to leave a trail of destruction in China, where efforts to care for the sick and curtail new infections are straining health care resources . Now, in a grim update, The New York Times reports that the novel pathogen is tearing through the country\u2019s prison system as well \u2014 a troubling hint that even in its epicenter, we still don\u2019t understand the full toll the epidemic\u2019s actually had Continue reading
The Deadly Coronavirus Is Tearing Through Chinese Prisons<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"