Tips on hand-washing don't "lift the anxiety" for prisoners across the U.S. worried about COVID-19

Visits to federal prisons and most state prisons in the U.S. have been shut down in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, which poses a growing threat to the 2.3 million people locked up in prisons and jails across the country. In the San Francisco Bay Area, where the local government has implemented one of the most severe responses in the U.S. to halt the spread of COVID-19, the San Quentin State Prison has put two prison blocks under partial quarantine. Juan Moreno Haines, an award-winning journalist who has been imprisoned in San Quentin since 2006, says the prison has also posted signs about proper hand-washing technique and information about how the disease is spread. "But that doesn't lift the anxiety level," Haines says. "My personal opinion is that it's not a matter of if it's going to happen, it's when it's going to happen."

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