The situation with medical care in prisons has long been severe and COVID has only made it very apparent. In state and county systems it is very common for pris

The situation with medical care in prisons has long been severe and COVID has only made it very apparent. In state and county systems it is very common for prisons to have not a single doctor and nurses only on part-time contracts. With the many complexities of COVID, we have a situation in this state where prisoners are now routinely failing to make court appearances because the jail did not have the resources to transport them to the courthouse, and nowadays the even more extreme situation that prisoners are missing court appearances because the jail did not have the resources to get them into a room with a working computer for a Zoom conference. While defense attorneys are increasingly making the argument that this constitutes a violation of constitutional rights, and judges are clearly fed up with the numerous delays this is causing, there is very little will to actually address the problem because it would be expensive.