However, shortly after this article was published Tuesday, a Justice Department spokesman suggested yet another course correction and indicated that officials at the Bureau of Prisons were confused or given inaccurate guidance about previous directives from Attorney General William Barr.

"The Department confirmed to BOP this afternoon that the BOP has discretion under the Attorney General's Memoranda on March 26 and April 3 regarding which home confinement cases are appropriate for review in order to fight the spread of the pandemic," the Justice Department statement said. "BOP will proceed expeditiously consistent with that confirmation."

The reversal reported by inmates to their families and lawyers on Monday could have dashed the hopes of several well-known prisoners seeking release from federal custody, including former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and former Trump personal lawyer Michael Cohen. Neither man has served half his sentence.

According to Manafort’s lawyer, Manafort was put into prerelease quarantine at a prison in Loretto, Pa., on March 30. Such quarantines typically last two weeks, but Manafort has not yet been released. He has served about 22 months of a 7½-year sentence.

Cohen’s lawyer told reporters last week that Cohen had been approved for home confinement, but needed to go through a quarantine. Cohen has served about 11 months of a three-year sentence.

Bureau of Prisons spokespeople did not respond to requests for comment for this report.

Barr ordered federal prisons to increase their use of home confinement on March 26 to lower risks associated with the virus. Some of the worst outbreaks in the country have occurred in close-quarters prisons, which cannot easily adhere to social-distancing guidelines.

On April 3, Barr used authority under the newly passed CARES Act to declare an emergency at prisons seriously impacted by Covid-19, the disease that develops from the novel coronavirus. The move waived the usual cap limiting home confinement to no more than six months at the end of an inmate’s sentence.

While the initial set of criteria for home confinement included a requirement that inmates had completed half of their sentences, prison officials were told by their superiors on April 9 that rule was expected to be dropped. The decision was cited in a declaration a Bureau of Prisons staffer submitted in connection with a lawsuit challenging the detention of inmates at a federal prison complex in Oakdale, La., that has suffered a serious outbreak of the virus.

That guidance led prisoners at a number of federal facilities nationwide to be put into prerelease quarantine around that date, according to family members of inmates. Some family and friends were making plans to pick up their loved ones this week. Others had purchased air tickets to return home, only to be told Monday that the expected releases had been scuttled.