As coronavirus outbreak hammers prison, number of NC inmates diagnosed jumps to 58
As an outbreak at Neuse Correctional Institution intensifies, the number of reported COVID-19 cases in North Carolina’s prisons has climbed to 58.
Thirty eight of the infected inmates were housed at Neuse, the state Department of Public Safety reported Thursday. The number of reported cases at that Eastern North Carolina prison has doubled since Tuesday.
Other infected inmates are at Caledonia Correctional Institution, Pasquotank Correctional Institution, Johnston Correctional Institution, Pender Correctional Institution, Scotland Correctional Institution and Caswell Correctional Center.
All of the diagnosed prisoners are in isolation and are being treated “in accordance with CDC and state Heath Department guidelines,” prison spokesman John Bull said.
Bull said he had no further details on the infected inmates.
Located in Goldsboro, Neuse houses about 770 minimum and medium custody inmates.
Inmates there have recently been issued face masks and extra soap, according to Destiny Akers, an Alamance County resident whose father is housed at the prison. Inmates have begun eating their meals in their housing units rather than the cafeteria, she said.
The inmates who’ve tested positive have been quarantined. And prison officials have begun taking the temperatures of every inmate in the prison, Akers said.
“They do seem to me — now that they have positive cases — a little more on top of infection control,” she said.
Akers said her 56-year-old father, Scott Davenport, previously had cause for concern. He suffers from a lung disease, high blood pressure and other ailments. Last week, Davenport saw inmates from another pod, where one of the infected inmates had lived, enter his housing area, his daughter said.
“He‘s got 18 months (before he’s released),” Akers said. “We’re just afraid he won’t make it back home.”
How many staffers infected? State won’t say.
As of last week, five staff members who worked at Central Prison in Raleigh, Johnston Correctional, Eastern Correctional Institution and Maury Correctional Institution had tested positive.
Bull said prison officials will no longer release statistics on the number of staff members who report testing positive for COVID-19.
“Self-reported numbers may not present a complete, true and accurate picture of potential staffing impacts,” Bull wrote in an email to The Charlotte Observer.
Staff members who report a fever or signs of respiratory illness are told to stay home or go home and are advised to consult with a doctor, Bull said. He said prison officials are taking “appropriate measures” in cases where they receive reports that staff members test positive.
As the number of inmates diagnosed rises, a coalition of civil rights groups has filed a lawsuit asking the state Supreme Court to immediately release vulnerable inmates.
The suit, filed by the ACLU of North Carolina, Disability Rights North Carolina and others, argues that Gov. Roy Cooper and the state Department of Public Safety have a legal duty to take action before a large-scale outbreak results in deaths inside the prisons and in surrounding communities.
State prison officials have been scrambling to secure supplies that slow the spread of the virus, the Observer reported.
Inside state prison manufacturing plants, inmates are now making face masks, gowns, disinfectant and hand sanitizer. Prison officials say all inmates and staff members will receive a face mask once enough are manufactured.
Prisons and jails are especially vulnerable to infectious diseases, experts say, because inmates live so closely together.
Various groups, including public health professionals and a coalition that includes the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina, have asked officials to reduce prison and jail populations as cases continue to rise across the state.
Hoping to prevent the coronavirus from spreading more widely, North Carolina prison officials say they will not accept any more offenders from county jails for the next 14 days.
State officials say they have stopped the transfer of most inmates from prison to prison during the next two weeks.
In mid-March, state officials temporarily banned all visits to the prisons in hopes of preventing an outbreak.
On March 24, state prison officials also suspended the work release program — an effort to limit inmates’ potential exposure to the coronavirus.
Prison officials say they have begun taking the temperatures of every employee who enters a prison each day. Anyone with a temperature of 100 degrees is denied entry, officials say.
Staffers are also asked a series of screening questions before they enter the prisons. Officials say they deny entry to any employee who has symptoms of respiratory illness or who has been exposed in the past 14 days to anyone who is suspected or diagnosed with COVID-19.
This story was originally published April 8, 2020 at 2:59 PM with the headline "As coronavirus outbreak hammers prison, number of NC inmates diagnosed jumps to 58."
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