COVID-19 claims the lives of 2 more inmates at prison east of Charlotte
Two more inmates at Albemarle Correctional Institution have died due to complications from COVID-19.
Albemarle Correctional, a medium-security prison located about an hour east of Charlotte, has been the site of one of the largest coronavirus outbreaks in the state prison system. More than 100 inmates there have tested positive so far. Another inmate there died of COVID-19 on July 14.
Only three other state prisons have had more inmates test positive. 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 have tested positive.
Lumberton Correctional Institution, a medium-security prison south of Fayetteville, has also experienced a recent outbreak. More than 200 inmates there have tested positive, according to the N.C. Department of Public Safety.
Across North Carolina, a total of eight state prison inmates have died due to complications from the virus.
State prison officials didn’t identify the latest inmates to die, citing the confidentiality of inmate records and the family’s right to privacy.
But they said one was a man in his early 60s who had underlying health conditions. The inmate tested positive on June 22 and was hospitalized on July 1, prison officials said. His condition worsened and he died on Thursday.
The other victim was in his early 70s and also had other health problems, state officials said. He was hospitalized on July 2 and died on Friday.
‘You all are spreading the virus’
Richard Webb, an inmate at Albemarle, is among those at the prison who’ve been diagnosed with COVID-19. He said he tested positive in late June, and was medically isolated for two weeks. On July 4th, he said, prison officials sent him back to work in the kitchen again.
“They’re telling us we can’t catch it again,” Webb told the Charlotte Observer.
But Webb said he still suffers from shortness of breath. Other inmates who are preparing food are still feeling symptoms, too, he said.
He said some people at the prison were cleaning the blocks of both infected inmates — and inmates who had not tested positive. That, he worries, has raised the risk that the virus will be spread.
“I said you all are spreading the virus,” Webb said.
Asked about Webb’s account, state prison spokesman John Bull said the prisons are following CDC guidelines to prevent the spread of the virus.
“Symptoms can persist despite being non-contagious,” Bull wrote in an email to the Observer.
More than 1,400 inmates test positive
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.
The state has brought in the National Guard to help conduct the tests.
So far, about 20,000 of the 32,000 inmates in state custody have been tested. And more than 1,400 of them have tested positive.
More than a third of the state’s prisons have had at least two confirmed cases of COVID-19.
On Friday, DPS announced that a youth at Pitt Juvenile Detention Center in Greenville has tested positive for the coronavirus — the first to be diagnosed in one of the state’s juvenile justice facilities.
Prisons and jails are often hotbeds for COVID-19 and other infectious diseases 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.
This story was originally published July 24, 2020 at 2:53 PM.
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