As COVID-19 cases climb statewide, so do cases inside Florida’s prisons
As the state’s total positive cases of COVID-19 continue to rise, so do the cases among the Florida prison system’s approximately 95,000 inmates.
Wednesday evening, 136 inmates and 102 staff members had tested positive for COVID-19, an increase from 128 inmates and 98 staff Tuesday, according to the Florida Department of Corrections. Four inmates had died, all of whom had been incarcerated at Blackwater River Correctional Facility, a compound near Pensacola run under contract by the Geo Group. The medical examiner in Santa Rosa County revealed the deaths.
There are currently 4,186 inmates in medical quarantine and 72 in “medical isolation” in hopes of preventing them from transmitting the virus to fellow inmates. Fifty-three of those in medical isolation are at Blackwater and Tomoka Correctional Institution in Daytona Beach.
Over 600 corrections staffers are out either sick or self-quarantine after potentially having contact with someone who was, according to numbers obtained by Rep. Dianne Hart, a Tampa Democrat and criminal justice reform advocate.
According to the FDC, some inmates at facilities with outbreaks of cases have been given masks to mitigate the spread of the highly contagious disease. According to families and loved ones, however, many inmates who still sleep close together and share facilities were not given masks and complain of a lack of soap to properly clean themselves.
As of this past weekend, non-symptomatic inmates were moved from Tomoka to Columbia Correctional Institution in Lake City, where there are so far no inmates who have tested positive for the illness, family members said.
Tomoka went from seven positive cases last Friday to 38 Saturday to 47 as of Wednesday.
Symptoms for COVID-19 exhibit themselves only around a week after contraction of the coronavirus, making it near impossible to tell if a person is carrying the virus or not without testing them.
Prisons have become a coronavirus hot spot in several states. Until late last week, the FDC had refused to reveal how many inmates were being tested, the results of those tests and whether specific prisons had become hot spots. After the first inmate deaths were confirmed by the Santa Rosa County Medical Examiner’s Office to the News Service of Florida, the department relented and began divulging new details.
The numbers posted Saturday show the state has tested 387 prisoners, a fraction of approximately 95,000 inmates in the system. The FDC listed 179 negative test results and 72 “pending.”
A woman with a son at Walter Correctional Institution said she is hopeful that her son will remain healthy, as the facility has no positive cases. But according to FDC data, they have only tested one person. He has not been given a mask to wear.
“I’m just praying that there are no cases there like the report says,” she said.
One woman, whose son is incarcerated at Sumter Correctional Institution in Central Florida, said the dorms are locked down and men are anxious about being sent into isolation if they get sick, fearing they won’t have access to phones or tablets to contact their families.
There are 42 inmates at Sumter who tested positive for COVID-19.
“He told me threats are happening daily because guys don’t want anyone coughing or showing any virus symptoms,” said the woman, who goes by “Vee.” “It used to be a good camp, but he says it’s changed and is not as good anymore.”
This article was updated with new numbers on April 22, 2020.