2 more NC inmates die from COVID-19. They were among 5% who were infected, tests show
Two more North Carolina prison inmates have died as a result of complications from COVID-19
The latest victim, a man in his early 60s who had been housed at Caldwell Correctional Center in Lenoir, died on Thursday. The other inmate, a man in his late 60s who had been housed at Lumberton Correctional Institution, died Wednesday.
They were the ninth and tenth state prison inmates to die from COVID-19. State prison officials didn’t identify them, citing the families’ right to privacy and the confidentiality of inmate records. But both men had underlying health problems, state officials said.
At Lumberton, a medium-security prison south of Fayetteville that houses about 675 inmates, 216 prisoners have tested positive for the coronavirus, according to the North Carolina Department of Public Safety.
But a recently completed testing initiative suggests that what transpired at Lumberton didn’t happen at most state prisons. The tests found that about 1,500 of the 32,000 inmates in the state prison system — roughly 5 percent — were infected, according to DPS data.
“Our staff have worked tirelessly to prevent the virus from getting into our prisons, to contain it when it does get into a facility and to reduce its spread to other prisons,” Commissioner of Prisons Todd Ishee said. “These numbers confirm their hard work is paying off and reflect our ongoing commitment to the safety of all North Carolina prisons.”
In late June, state prison officials announced that they would test each inmate for COVID-19. That followed a ruling by Wake County Superior Court Judge Vinston Rozier, who ordered the state to submit a plan for testing all prisoners.
The judge’s ruling came in response to a lawsuit filed by the ACLU of North Carolina, the NAACP and other civil rights groups, who argue that the actions of prison leaders have left inmates vulnerable to contracting the virus.
Tests results show relatively small percentage infected
But in a news release announcing the results, DPS officials noted that several other states that mass tested inmates found a higher percentage testing positive. Among them: New Jersey, with 16 percent of inmates testing positive, Tennessee with 14 percent, Michigan with 11 percent and Texas with 10 percent.
DPS said that of the roughly 29,000 tested in the recent mass-testing initiative, about 2 percent tested positive.
“The vast majority of offenders in the state prison system who tested positive for COVID-19 since the first case emerged four months ago, on April 1, are now presumed to have recovered,” a DPS news release stated.
The state spent about $3.3 million to conduct the tests and brought in the National Guard to help conduct them.
More than two-thirds of the state’s prisons have had at least one confirmed case of COVID-19.
The largest outbreak happened at Neuse Correctional Institution, in Goldsboro, where more than 460 inmates tested positive in April. The second-largest outbreak has been at the North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women, in Raleigh, where more than 230 prisoners tested positive.
COVID-19 and other infectious diseases tend to thrive inside prisons and jails because inmates live so closely together. And those diseases endanger more than inmates and prison employees. That’s because employees can carry the virus to their families and communities.
State officials say they’ve suspended visits to the prisons and have taken many other steps to try to prevent the spread of the virus. Prison employees are also receiving hazard pay for working during the pandemic; health care workers are getting a 20 percent pay increase, while other employees are getting a 10 percent increase.
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