Bill Cosby spent his first day in a Pennsylvania state prison much as he will spend many days to come: mostly alone.

He slept alone on Tuesday night on a cot bolted to the floor of a cell he shares with no one. When his door was unlocked on Wednesday morning, Cosby stepped into a TV room that was empty except for his guards. Several cells identical to his own lined the walls in this section of State Correctional Institution Phoenix, and every one of them was vacant.

Cosby ate breakfast, lunch and dinner by himself. He walked the yard without company. Four times that day - at precisely 6.10am, 12.30, 4.30 and 9pm before lights out - a guard walked the unit to count the prisoners, and the count was always one.

This quasi-isolation won't last forever - maybe only a week or two. It's mostly a coincidence that Cosby was assigned to a brand-new prison that is still just barely half full. Administrators decided out of caution to isolate him from the other prisoners until they can figure out what to do with one of the most famous sex offenders in the country for the duration of his three-to-10 year sentence.