We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.
THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME
Buried by news last week about Ukraine and Judge Jackson’s nomination, the COVID-19 BA.2 subvariant has quietly become the dominant strain of COVID in America. Two weeks ago, BA.2 comprised an estimated 35% of analyzed samples nationwide; the previous week, it made up 22%. In the week ending March 26, BA.2 accounted for nearly 55% of new cases in the US, while the previously dominant strain – BA.1.1 – accounted for 40.4% of cases.
Max Frost and the Troopers might have called BA.2 “The Shape of Things to Come.” After all, the variant is now over “Fifty Two Percent.”
Ominously, BOP inmate COVID numbers – which bottomed out at 99 ten days ago – have slowly climbed to 167 as of last night. Staff cases dropped from 243 to 138 in the same period.
BA.2 is believed to be 30% to 60% more contagious than the earlier omicron subvariant. BA.2, however, doesn’t appear to result in more severe illness than BA.1, and it’s likely that people recently infected with the earlier omicron subvariant will have a decent degree of at least short-term immunity to BA.2. The BOP says 70.9% of staff and 80.7% of inmates have gotten the basic vaccine, but it does not indicate the number of boosters given.
In the last two weeks, the BOP announced four more inmate COVID deaths, one at Coleman Medium (Florida), one at Victorville (California), and the other two at FCC Butner (North Carolina). Two occurred in February and two in the last week. Two of the four had previously recovered from COVID. In the last 12 months, 56% of BOP inmates dying of COVID had previously caught the virus with milder symptoms.
At least 310 federal inmates in the BOP and private prisons have died of COVID in the two-year period since April 2020. In the prior 19 years, an average of 42 federal inmates a year died in custody. Over the past two years, the number from COVID alone averaged 154.
L.A. Times, Omicron subvariant BA.2 spreading rapidly in L.A. and across the nation (March 25, 2022)
Quartz, The BA.2 covid sub-variant is now dominant in the US (March 29, 2022)
Bloomberg, Earning Early Release Under the First Step Act (March 22, 2022)
BOP, Inmate Death at USP Coleman I (March 22, 2022)
BOP, Inmate Death at FMC Butner (March 22, 2022)
BOP, Inmate Death at FCI Victorville II (March 28, 2022)
BOP, Inmate Death at FCI Butner Medium I (March 28, 2022)
– Thomas L. Root