The coronavirus poses a threat to everyone, regardless of age, sex, or nationality. But it’s a particularly big threat for the incarcerated. Not only do inmates live in extremely close quarters, but many prisons fail to maintain basic hygienic standards. Many prisons struggle to provide sufficient supplies of soap and paper towels in their bathrooms.

As if this weren’t bad enough, many incarcerated people find themselves doubly isolated by the Bureau of Prisons’s 30-day suspension on social visits. No longer can friends and family come to visit their loved ones in prison, and even lawyers’ visits must be approved on a case-by-case basis. This added distance has proven disastrous in Italy, where riots have broken out in several prisons, and several prisoners have escaped.