The D.C. Jail has seen a rapid surge in COVID-19 cases over the last week, going from one recorded case among detained residents last Wednesday to at least 117 just one week later. And at least 62 Department of Corrections staff are out after testing positive for COVID-19, according to data from DC Health.

The rise in cases at the jail comes as the entire D.C. region is shattering records for new cases. It has advocates concerned about what the highly contagious omicron variant of the coronavirus could mean for the D.C. Jail, which struggled to control a significant outbreak early in the pandemic.

“Even if you took COVID out of the equation, these are abysmal living conditions,” says Vida Johnson, an associate professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center who supervises attorneys defending cases in D.C. Superior Court. “We’ve long known that to be the case and yet we continue to do nothing about it. And then you layer COVID on top and it becomes a real public health crisis and a humanitarian one.”

According to the D.C. Department of Corrections, of the 38 units at its Central Detention Facility (also known as the D.C. Jail) and adjacent Correctional Treatment Facility, 13 units are currently quarantined because of residents’ potential exposure to the virus. An additional three units are on isolation, meaning they are full of people who have tested positive for COVID-19.

“The DC Department of Corrections has worked diligently to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 in our facilities and across our staff,” a DOC spokesperson wrote in a statement to WAMU/DCist. “Due to the uptick in cases across the country and the new Omicron variant, DOC has also been impacted.”

In response to the outbreak, the spokesperson wrote, DOC has stopped social visits, moved programming and education opportunities to a virtual format, and reduced recreation time “in order to maintain social distance, alleviate the spread of COVID-19, and to allow for facility-wide testing and continued education on proper mask wearing and vaccinations.” As of Wednesday, people incarcerated at the jail are confined to their cells for 22 hours a day because of a new modified medical stay-in-place order, according to DOC.

The spokesperson did not answer questions about how many people detained at the jail have received COVID-19 vaccines. The spokesperson also told WAMU/DCist they could not provide data on how many residents have received a booster shot, but said that the department “continues to offer a COVID-19 vaccine to all residents and is offering the booster to all residents who are eligible.”

A chart of overall vaccine numbers obtained by WAMU/DCist indicates that as of Dec. 15, about 49% of residents at the D.C. Jail and adjacent Correctional Treatment Facility remained unvaccinated, about 46% were fully vaccinated, and the remaining residents had received one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. Unvaccinated people remain at the highest risk of getting seriously ill from COVID-19.

According to DOC, vaccination will still be offered to residents during the facility’s current modified medical stay-in-place order, and medical staff will still be proactively reaching out to residents to offer them the shot and educate them about it.

“Unity Healthcare medical staff will continue to provide vaccine education to residents at intake and by walking the units,” says a document provided by DOC explaining the policy.

The current count of confirmed cases among detained residents — which increased rapidly from just one as of last Wednesday, to 10 as of last Thursday, to 82 as of Tuesday and 117 as of Wednesday morning – is one of the largest the facility has seen since the first wave of COVID-19 hit D.C. in the spring of 2020. At that time, people being detained at the jail filed a class action lawsuit against Department of Corrections leadership over their handling of the pandemic, alleging that leadership did not do enough to protect residents and staff from the virus. Three Department of Corrections employees and one detained resident have died from COVID-19, according to DC Health data. In total, at least 312 DOC staff and more than 450 people in DOC custody have contracted COVID-19. The city does not publish data about how many staff and detained residents at the D.C. Jail have been hospitalized because of the virus.

In response to the rise in cases, Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen, who chairs the D.C. Council committee that performs oversight of DOC, has called for the facility to scale up and require rapid testing of staff and move forward immediately with the city’s vaccination requirements with no test-out option. According to DC Health, the city has arranged for 50,000 rapid tests to reach residents and staff of congregate care facilities and other high risk facilities, including the D.C. Jail, but DOC did not respond to WAMU/DCist questions about whether they were implementing a rapid testing program for staff or requiring rapid testing upon staff entrance to the facility (all incoming detained residents are quarantined upon their arrival to the jail, per DOC policy). A DOC employee who declined to be named because they were not authorized to speak with media told WAMU/DCist that as of Monday, DOC was not offering rapid tests to staff. The employee said weekly testing was mandatory for unvaccinated staff and voluntary for vaccinated staff.

In a letter sent Wednesday afternoon to Deputy Mayor for Public Safety and Justice Chris Geldart and City Administrator Kevin Donahue, Allen expressed frustration with the lack of communication he has received about the outbreak in the jail.

“I have repeatedly requested information from the Department of Corrections but have not yet received it,” wrote Allen. “My office should not have to rely on legal counsel, advocates, and DOC residents and employees to inform us about conditions of confinement such as lockdowns or the spread of the virus, nor should it take repeated outreach from my office to elicit this basic information.”

In the letter, Allen asked for DOC to provide his office with daily information about the rate of COVID cases, vaccination and booster rates of staff and residents, and other protocols — including the current policy for requiring employees to return to work if they have known exposure to the coronavirus.

A spokesperson for Geldart did not immediately respond to WAMU/DCist’s request for comment on the letter from Allen.

Since the start of the pandemic, defense lawyers have also called for a reduction in the D.C. Jail population in response to the coronavirus. And at first, the jail population did shrink significantly, from 1,854 people on March 18, 2020, to 1,265 people on June 29, 2020.

But after that initial reduction, the jail population steadily increased. Public defenders said the U.S. Parole Commission started detaining people for technical parole violations again. Court backlogs mean some people are being held indefinitely in the D.C. Jail without a trial — some since the start of the pandemic.

Johnson told WAMU/DCist she has seen prosecutors request jail time for misdemeanors in recent weeks — evidence that they are not being as discretionary as they were at the beginning of the pandemic. She says prosecutors, judges, and the Department of Corrections could all do more to reduce the jail population in response to the pandemic.

“The Department of Corrections calculation of ‘good time’ could be used in a way that would reduce the jail population for people serving misdemeanor sentences, the parole commission could release holds of people that are in the jail for technical violations, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office and judges should also stop detaining people particularly in non-violent misdemeanor cases,” says Johnson.

As of Friday, 1,281 people were being held at the D.C. Jail and adjacent Correctional Treatment Facility. But the reason the jail population has decreased significantly in recent weeks is likely driven largely by the U.S. Marshals Service decision to transfer many of the people in its custody out of the D.C. Jail in response to a surprise inspection that found alarming conditions and “systemic failures” in the jail’s operations.

After its October inspection, the marshals service transferred at least 200 people in its custody to a facility in Lewisburg, Pa. and other federal prisons.

In recent weeks, after a memo summarizing the marshals service findings became public, advocates have doubled down on calls for a reduction in the D.C. Jail population, along with improved oversight, an expedited plan for a new replacement facility, and investments in community-based violence prevention programs.

“We deserve better,” said a recent letter to D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and the D.C. Council signed by about 50 local organizations and dozens of residents and advocates. “As the national spotlight on the D.C. Jail’s deplorable conditions continue[s] to grow, and those incarcerated at the jail continue to face inadequate medical care, horrid conditions, and abuse from corrections officers, Mayor Bowser and the D.C. Council must act now.”