Stanford researchers help California prisons hit hard by COVID-19
The coronavirus has caused a significant health crisis in California's prisons. As of this writing, there are about 99,000 people incarcerated in the state, and more than 8,300 of them have tested positive for the virus causing COVID-19.
To stem the spread, Gov. Gavin Newsom has released more than 15,500 prisoners since mid-March -- many of them low-level offenders near the end of their sentence. More inmates who are either scheduled to be freed soon or have significant health risks are eligible for release by the end of August.
Researchers Jeremy Goldhaber-Fiebert, PhD, and Jason Andrews, MD, are leading a Stanford Medicine team focused on assessing the crisis inside California's corrections facilities and evaluating strategies to contain the virus. The effort has funding from the Horowitz Family Foundation. Goldhaber-Fiebert is a decision scientist and mathematical modeler, and Andrews is an infectious disease modeler and clinician.
Read the full article as it originally appeared in SCOPE published by Stanford Medicine