Two more cases of COVID-19 reported at Butner Federal Prison in North Carolina
The COVID-19 is continuing to spread throughout a federal prison in Granville County.
Butner Federal Correctional Institution now has 12 confirmed cases of the coronavirus, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons website.
On Saturday, two new cases of COVID-19 were confirmed at the prison, bringing the total to 11. Butner houses 1,278 inmates.
Butner also had one staff member test positive for COVID-19.
As of Saturday, 120 inmates and 54 staff members across all federal prisons had tested positive.
Officials for Butner and the federal prison system did not return phone messages late Wednesday afternoon.
The facility includes the bureau’s largest medical center with space for 948 inmates.
An alert on the prison’s website said all visits at the facility had been suspended until further notice. On March 28, a prisoner being held in Oakdale, La, died from COVID-19. The bureau has taken extra measures to try and prevent the spread of COVID-19 in its facilities.
There is a mandatory 14-day quarantine for new inmates. If an inmate needs to be moved, the inmate must undergo an exit screening for COVID-19 symptoms, according to the bureau’s website. If the inmate has COVID-19 symptoms, or a temperature higher than 100.4 degrees, he or she will not be transferred and will be placed in isolation.
Social visits have been suspended, and inmate movement had been suspended with limited exceptions, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons website.
In state prisons, officials say about 100 inmates have been tested for the coronavirus, The Charlotte Observer reports. There are four inmates and five staff members who have tested positive for the virus so far.
Meanwhile, 148 prison employees across the state — out of about 16,00 prison employees system-wide — have been put on leave due to possible symptoms or exposure to COVID-19, according to a March 30 briefing report obtained by the Charlotte Observer.
Ames Alexander of The Charlotte Observer contributed to this report.
This story was originally published April 1, 2020 at 5:57 PM.
