At least 38 people are confirmed infected with the coronavirus in New York City jails, including at the notorious Rikers Island jail complex, the board that oversees the city's jail system says.

And at least 58 other people are currently being monitored in contagious disease and quarantine units, Board of Correction interim chairwoman Jacqueline Sherman said in a letter to criminal justice leaders on Saturday.

“It is likely these people have been in hundreds of housing areas and common areas over recent weeks and have been in close contact with many other people in custody and staff,” Sherman warned, predicting a marked increase in the number of infections.

“The best path forward to protecting the community of people housed and working in the jails is to rapidly decrease the number of people housed and working in them.”

She wrote that at least 12 Department of Correction employees, five Correctional Health Services employees, and 21 inmates were confirmed positive for the virus during the past six days.

On Friday, the city's Department of Corrections said one inmate and seven jail staff members had been tested positive with the virus.

The department admitted last Saturday that 19 inmates had tested positive along with 12 staff members.

Having conversations with current and former inmates, The Associated Press found that New York has consistently downplayed the number of infections.

Over 2.2 million people are imprisoned across the United States more than anywhere in the world and the growing concern is that the ongoing coronavirus outbreak could spread rapidly through a vast network of federal and state prisons, county jails and detention centers.

News of the first positive tests from inside prisons and jails first broke just over a week ago, with less than two dozen officers and staff tested positive in other facilities from California and Michigan to Pennsylvania.

According to worldometers.info, the number of cases in the United States now stands at 26,888 and nearly 350 have died across the country.