From The New York Times, I’m Michael Barbaro. This is “The Daily.”

Across the U.S. —

Jails and prisons, with their cramped quarters and communal living, have become hotbeds for the spread of the coronavirus —

— prompting local governments to take the unprecedented step of releasing thousands of inmates —

— and raising the fraught question of who is let out and who remains in custody. Today, Megan Twohey speaks with our colleague Alan Feuer about the story of one inmate trying to get out of the second largest jail in the country, Rikers Island in New York.

It’s Thursday, April 23.

So, Alan, tell me about Mitch Pomerance.

So I met Mitch Pomerance through his lawyer, Laura Eraso. And Mitch is 54. And before the virus even landed at Rikers, Mitch was already in bad health. In fact, his health was so bad at one point that he had to be transported off the Island to a nearby hospital, where he underwent surgery to drain fluid from his lungs. And so he’s been working with Laura, his lawyer, trying to build a case to get off of Rikers Island.

And we recorded three of their conversations over the course of a week, earlier this month.

The court system, don’t forget, has more or less shut down because of the pandemic.

Right.

And on the day that we recorded our first call with Mitch, there was indeed a backlog in the court system, and the judge didn’t have time to hear Mitch’s case.

And while Mitch is waiting for the judge to hear his case, what is the situation like for him inside the jail?

So Mitch is housed in a dorm at Rikers. And that means that he lives with a dozen or so inmates in one open room. And he tells his lawyer that one person in that dorm has tested positive for Coivd-19.

Mitch is also telling his lawyer here that the staff at Rikers hasn’t cleaned the dorms since that person tested positive.

And how does that description of the conditions, at least in his particular dorm, how does that square with what you’ve learned in your reporting?

Well, from the start of the crisis, the Department of Corrections has taken several measures to slow the spread of the virus. They’ve asked inmates to sleep head to toe at night. You know, they wanted to get one mouth and nose as far away from another mouth and nose as they could. They had the cleaning staff clean the common areas and the housing areas as best as possible. But the fact is, conditions at Rikers remain very unsanitary. You know, the inmates can’t get hand sanitizer because it’s an alcohol-based product, and they’re not allowed to have alcohol. Oftentimes, the only way for them to get soap for their own personal hygiene is to buy it in the commissary. So these measures that were put in place to stop the spread of the virus haven’t always worked.

So it sounds like Mitch’s risk of getting Covid-19 is really high.

Yes. But, in fact, Mitch’s lawyer, Laura, expects they could get a decision from the judge very soon about the question of his release.

But when they talk the next day —

— she’s got some bad news. She and her team went in front of the judge. They argued the case. And the judge has said no, Mitch can’t get out.

Hmm.

So by this point, Rikers has already released hundreds of inmates.

Correct.

So how are they deciding who stays and who goes?

Well, so far they’ve released 650 people. And of those 650 people, you’re generally talking about three different categories of inmates. First, there are those who have been accused of non-violent, low-level offenses. There are also people who are at Rikers serving what’s called a city year, a sentence that is short, less than a year, and so they’re about to get out anyhow. And then there’s a third category of people who are at the Island because they’ve committed a technical violation of their parole, meaning they were out on parole for a previous crime, and they got caught doing something minor like smoking a joint or drinking a beer on their sidewalk.

So how does Mitch fit into this picture?

So the challenge for Mitch is that his case is just a lot more complicated.

Mitch has served a combined 22 years in prison for selling drugs and committing multiple robberies. The state considers him a violent offender. He got out of prison in 2018. But then, last summer, he was rearrested for an attempted robbery charge while he was on parole. So Mitch just doesn’t really fit neatly into any of those categories for people that were getting off Rikers Island. And yet, he’s medically vulnerable, which is another factor that judges are weighing in releasing people from Rikers and that the city itself is prioritizing people like that — those people, who, if they catch Covid-19, they’re more likely to die.

So Mitch represents this really difficult but interesting tension that a lot of courts are facing across the country right now. Does he pose too much of a risk to public safety to be let out, or is he medically vulnerable enough to be let out? Should judges be prioritizing the safety of the public, or should they be thinking about the health of the individual inmates?

So, Alan, it sounds like the judge, in denying Mitch’s request to get out of Rikers, is putting considerations of public safety above his health.

Yeah, absolutely.

So what does Mitch say about that?

Well, I asked him. I just put it to him if he was a public safety threat given his rap sheet.

So what happens next?

Mitch and Laura talked again the day after the judge denied his request to leave Rikers.

Mitch tests positive for Covid-19.

Wow.

So is that it? Is Mitch out of options?

Well, what this does — the change that this makes in Mitch’s case from a legal perspective is that it allows Laura, his lawyer, to make a totally different argument in front of the judge. Now, instead of just saying that Mitch is potentially at risk of contracting the disease, she can argue that because he already has it, and he’s got this terrible preexisting condition in his lungs, that he’s not going to be able to get the proper medical care he needs at Rikers Island.

These jails, like Navy ships or meat processing plants, they are petri dishes for infection. But unlike service members or essential workers, inmates in jails, they aren’t necessarily the most sympathetic population in the world. Still, should part of their punishment be to potentially contract a disease like Covid-19? I mean, is that supposed to be included in the price of going to jail?

Mitch is still there at Rikers, waiting for an answer.

Well, Alan, thank you so much for taking the time to share this with us.

Well, thanks for having me, Megan.

We’ll be right back.

Here’s what else you need to know today. In a major discovery, public health officials in California now say that the coronavirus killed a resident there on Feb. 6. That discovery changes the timeline of the virus in the U.S. by revealing that infections began much earlier than previously thought. Until now, the first U.S. death was believed to have occurred in Washington State on Feb. 26, about three weeks later. The Feb. 6 death, in the town of Santa Clara, is believed to be the result of community spread, suggesting that the virus was circulating on the West Coast well before public health officials had realized. And The Times reports that Chinese government operatives were involved in spreading false warnings to Americans about an impending national lockdown in March. The warnings, which arrived as text messages and social media posts, alarmed millions of Americans. U.S. officials said that the tactics resembled past attempts by Russia to widen social divisions within the U.S. That’s it for “The Daily.” I’m Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.