The total confirmed dead from the virus in the U.S. is now at 18,586, second only to Italy, and the confirmed worldwide death toll has reached 100,000.

Bureau of Prisons Director Michael Carvajal on Friday defended his agencys response to the coronavirus pandemic amid criticism from corrections workers, inmates and civil rights attorneys that the inaction of officials caused the virus to fester in federal prisons.
I dont think anybody was ready for this covid, so were dealing with it just as well as anybody else and Id be proud to say were doing pretty good, Carvajal said in an interview with CNN, his first with a national news outlet since the pandemic began.
Since the pandemic reached the United States, nine federal inmates have died from the coronavirus, according to the BOP, including six at Oakdale prison in rural Louisiana, the outbreaks epicenter in the federal prison system. As of Friday, at least 318 federal inmates and 163 corrections staff have tested positive for coronavirus, according to the BOP.
Inmates and corrections officers have reported shortages of masks, gloves and other protective equipment, and say theyve continued to work and serve in cramped, unsanitary conditions despite instructions from the countrys top health officials to practice social distancing, as The Washington Post has reported.
Carvajal, a career prison worker, was appointed to lead the BOP on Feb. 25 and received his first briefing on the virus two days later, according to CNN.
It was quite overwhelming, a week or two into this job, knowing that we were going to have to deal with something like this, he said.
Carvajal outlined the suite of steps the BOP has taken to protect inmates and staff in its 122 facilities, including ending visitations from families and attorneys, quarantining new inmates and shutting inmates in their cells for two weeks. Prison officials have also started in the past week to release vulnerable inmates early, he said.
Its easy to critique those hot spots, but we dont control that, Carvajal said. We can only control the people inside of our institutions, and we put things in place to do that.
I understand the criticism of the timing on it, he added, but thats where I believe that experience on running prisons and we know our population, we know what we can and cant do and the right time to do it, and that played a big role in making the decision.