Rate of COVID-19 positive tests among prison and general population 2020, by province
Prisons are vulnerable institutions in terms of the spread of disease, and in the context of a pandemic, prisoners are at particularly high risk compared to the general population. Factors such as an aging prison population, overcrowding, and promiscuity, as well as substance use, create a fertile ground for the spread of the virus. In 2020, more than a quarter of the Canadian prison population that was tested were positive for COVID-19, compared to six percent of the general population. In Quebec, this proportion was 44 percent compared to 12 percent.
