As New York City begins to gradually reopen after its coronavirus lockdown, the threat of COVID-19 infection inside Rikers Island rages on. As of July 24, 288 people in custody of the NYC Department of Correction or 7.3% of the population were confirmed to be COVID-19 positive.

Because of a lack of widespread testing , that number is almost certainly an undercount. Even so, it indicates a rate of infection that is almost three times higher than the rate for New York City as a whole. The city has, for months, refused to publicly disclose the total number of people incarcerated at the Rikers jail complex who have contracted COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic. Until recently, the city would only provide a current, rather than a cumulative, count and the numbers released represent all individuals detained by the Correction Department, not just at Rikers, its biggest facility.

But the information that is available indicates an abysmal failure to protect the people in the departments custody, the overwhelming majority of whom have not been convicted of a crime. Being imprisoned at Rikers during the pandemic, several incarcerated individuals have told HuffPost , is like waiting to die. At least three people in Correction Department custody have already died from the coronavirus including two people who were in jail because of minor parole violations .

In May, Patricia Kim, a discharge planning social worker at Rikers Island, blew the whistle when she wrote an affidavit accusing city officials of failing to implement effective, basic, common-sense preventative measures to prevent transmission of COVID-19 to its medically vulnerable detainees. In the affidavit, the existence of which has not previously been reported, Kim described glaring discrepancies between the jails official COVID-19 policies and its on-the-ground reality. Social distancing and mask-wearing are inconsistent in the poorly ventilated facility, she wrote. Some incarcerated individuals sleep in beds only a few feet apart. Correctional officers and other staff move between units used to detain COVID-19 positive individuals and the rest of the jail, potentially spreading the virus throughout the facility.

There is little acknowledgment within Rikers of the risk of asymptomatic spread and even efforts to detect symptoms are poorly enforced, Kim wrote. In March, a staff member whose temperature was recorded at an impossibly low 85 degrees was approved for entry, even though the reading was clearly inaccurate. Kim said she was told in April that even if she tested positive for the coronavirus, she should continue coming to work as long as she did not have a fever and was not coughing all over the place. And in May, Kim said she noticed a sign as she passed through the metal detector that incorrectly advised, If you are feeling well, no need to wear a mask.

Lawyers with New Yorks Legal Aid Society have secured the release of hundreds of people since the beginning of the pandemic but other clients have been denied release including many who are elderly and have serious medical conditions. The Legal Aid Society has been incorporating Kims affidavit into bail applications to free their clients. HuffPost spoke with Kim in mid-July about her decision to come forward and what her job has been like since then. The conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

What made you come forward? What compelled you to write the affidavit?

Its the same as why I decided to work on [Rikers] Island as part of Correctional Health Services or getting into social work in general. Its noticing and having the experience as an Asian person of color of the significant lack of resources and a really significant disparity in terms of the kind of care that one gets compared to white folks.

When you step into an environment where people acutely have been in need of care since their childhood, when you see that these interventions have not been made, and now were experiencing a pandemic its extraordinarily important that we continue to advocate for folks in their freedom. There is no reason why they should be waiting to catch a virus in a jail.

And were you afraid of retaliation?

Absolutely. Absolutely.