Central Prison employee tests positive for coronavirus in Raleigh
An employee at Central Prison has tested positive for COVID-19, increasing fears the virus will spread behind bars.
Diana Kees, spokeswoman for the NC Department of Public Safety, confirmed the employee’s condition Thursday, adding that the worker has been off the job since originally getting sick on March 20.
The state has already confirmed coronavirus at Caledonia Correctional Complex in eastern North Carolina, where one inmate has tested positive. Another prison worker at Maury Correctional Institution makes three confirmed cases in state-run prisons.
The federal penitentiary in Butner has nine confirmed cases.
The Central Prison employee got sick March 20 and worked briefly before getting tested a week later, Kees said. That employee reported being exposed to a family member who had traveled to New York. The state received the positive test results Wednesday.
“We do not underestimate the challenges we face to keep coronavirus from entering the prison system,” said Todd Ishee, commissioner of prisons, in a statement to the N&O. “Many actions have been implemented to protect the health and well-being of the state and the men and women in our care. We must do all we can possibly do to deny this virus a foothold in our prisons.”
The staff is being screened with no-touch thermometers, Kees said, and no one testing above 100 degrees may enter. Incoming inmates from county jails are being quarantined for 14 days. Work release programs are suspended statewide and inmates have been issued two bars of soap rather than one.
