An offender housed at Albemarle Correctional Institution who tested positive for COVID-19 has died at the hospital as a result of pre-existing conditions complicated by COVID-19. This is the seventh coronavirus death of an individual in custody at a North Carolina state prison.
“His death is tragic, and we are continuing to work hard to handle the impact of COVID-19 in our prisons,” said Todd Ishee, Commissioner of Prisons. “The health and safety of the staff and the offenders in our custody remains our top priority.”
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An offender housed at Albemarle Correctional Institution who tested positive for COVID-19 has died at the hospital as a result of pre-existing conditions complicated by COVID-19. This is the sixth coronavirus death of an individual in custody at a North Carolina state prison.
“His death is a tragedy, and we are continuing to work hard to handle the impact of COVID-19 in our prisons,” said Todd Ishee, Commissioner of Prisons. “The health and safety of the staff and the offenders in our custody remains our top priority.”
The North Carolina Department of Public Safety is continuing its efforts to contain and reduce the spread of COVID-19 in state prisons by conducting testing of the offender population statewide. This week mass offender population testing will be conducted at the North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women (NCCIW) in Raleigh.
State prison officials have initiated a plan to test all 31,000 offenders for COVID-19.
“We’ve done some mass testing at prisons with significant outbreaks of this awful virus, but now we are going to test them all, the entire offender population,” said Commissioner of Prisons Todd Ishee.
This testing of the population is estimated to require at least 60 days to complete, at a projected cost of more than $3.3 million.
Today, Governor Roy Cooper signed Executive Order 143. to addresses the social, environmental, economic, and health disparities in communities of color that have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Order directs state agencies and offices to provide targeted measures to help communities of color that have been affected by the pandemic.
An additional 31 asymptomatic offenders at Caswell Correctional Center have tested positive for COVID-19, as part of a mass testing operation conducted on Friday by the Division of Prisons.
A total of 374 offenders tested negative, meaning 7.7 percent of the 405 offenders tested were asymptomatic yet positive for the virus.
To protect staff and offenders, Division of Prisons officials today initiated the testing of all 420 offenders at Caswell Correctional Center, as well as continuing to provide testing access and to encourage staff to be tested. Data and previous experience at Neuse Correctional Institution prompted the decision to test all offenders at the facility.
The N.C. Department of Public Safety today announced it will extend until July 31 an initiative that provides voluntary COVID-19 testing to employees in its Division of Adult Correction and Juvenile Justice (ACJJ). The initiative was expanded past its original tentative May 31 end date after the State Health Plan announced earlier this week it would extend to July 31 the time period in which state employees covered by the plan could receive COVID-19 testing at no cost.
The Division of Prisons has resumed a limited number of transfers of offenders to make room for other offenders sentenced to state prison. The movement of offenders currently housed in state prisons is being done in phases to prepare for the gradual reopening of the courts and the removal of a moratorium on the acceptance of prison-sentenced offenders from the county jails.
Following testing earlier this week, children at two state juvenile justice facilities have tested negative for COVID-19; testing of juveniles at a third facility will take place today. This testing is occurring after a staff member at each facility reported that they tested positive for the coronavirus.