COVID-19 has shone a bright spotlight on the deep cracks of inequality in Chicago. Unfortunately, some of the decisions being made by those in charge of Cook County, which includes Chicago and its surrounding suburbs, have been somewhere between oblivious and negligent.

I spent two recent Sundays working at Cook County Jail. Located in Chicago, it is one of the largest prisons in the entire country, and it was at one point the nation’s largest-known hotspot of COVID-19 infections. As of April 30, almost 800 detainees and staff have tested positive, and six inmates and one officer have died. I’ve been a nurse for thirteen years and spent eight of them in the busy emergency room at Cook County’s Stroger Hospital. This has been my first time working in a prison setting. It was worse than I anticipated.

Several of the inmates reported not getting adequate care. Another I worked with was incidentally diagnosed with diabetes after their incarceration. He was so frustrated because he had contracted COVID-19, he didn’t believe the diabetes diagnosis was true, was refusing treatment for the diabetes, and had been protesting by hunger striking for two days. Two other young men with diabetes had glucose levels higher than my device could measure. One said this was because he had not received his insulin the day before.