Texas Prison Officers: We Asked For Face Masks In 2017. COVID-19 Got Here First.

Three years before the coronavirus pandemic, corrections officers in Texas begged the prison system to prepare for such a disaster. A series of mumps outbreaks had just swept through three lock-ups near the southern border, and the worried staff began complaining to their union reps: the agency wasn’t answering their questions, they said. They feared bringing the disease back into their communities, worried they lacked training on how to protect themselves and said they couldn’t get adequate protective gear because they’d been told the agency couldn’t afford it.Union officials eventually...