“It is past time for “business as usual” when it comes to Virginia’s correctional institutions and COVID-19. The experience of the unchecked spread of this virus at a rehabilitation facility in Henrico is all the evidence anyone should need of the urgency of the situation presented by the close quarters of our jails, prisons and juvenile facilities. The governor must lead a uniform statewide response that ensures that anyone in custody is released who is not a danger to commit bodily harm to another, that not one more person is taken into custody and admitted to jail who is not an imminent threat to do bodily injury to another, and that all public officials responsible for managing custodial institutions report daily to the public regarding people tested for COVID-19, people tested positive, and in custody and staff deaths. It will be too late to act when this virus spreads to more institutions risking the lives of everyone living and working there and anyone called into the facility to render emergency aid or health care. The governor must use every tool at his disposal, including his clemency power and his oversight and control of the budgets of the Parole Board, the Departments of Juvenile Justice, Corrections and Behavioral Health, and the Department of Health to reduce the populations of Virginia’s facilities. Nothing else will allow any social distancing or other mitigation practices to work. Localities like Charlottesville and Virginia Beach have shown what can be done to release people at rates much higher than the governor’s public safety administration has done statewide without adverse consequences for public safety. The need for the governor to act is a moral imperative. The urgency is clear. The fact that a disproportionate number of the people being held in these facilities are black makes this a racial justice issue of grave significance. It is often said that where there is a will there’s a way. In this case, the way is clear, all that is needed is the political will,” Executive Director Claire Gastañaga said in a statement.