{"id":46403,"date":"2020-04-16T15:27:03","date_gmt":"2020-04-16T19:27:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=46403"},"modified":"2020-04-16T15:27:28","modified_gmt":"2020-04-16T19:27:28","slug":"two-deaths-as-covid-19-cases-skyrocket-at-a-florida-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2020\/04\/two-deaths-as-covid-19-cases-skyrocket-at-a-florida-prison\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Deaths as COVID-19 Cases Skyrocket at a Florida Prison"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The first two deaths in Florida’s prison system related to the coronavirus comes as the system is seeing a spike in both staff and people serving time testing positive for COVID-19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Just over a week ago, the Florida Department of Corrections<\/a> said 12 staff members and no inmates had tested positive. As of Tuesday, that grew to 56 staff members and 35 inmates, with a majority of the case explosion happening at the Blackwater River Correctional Facility in Florida’s Panhandle, where two individuals reportedly died.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Debra Bennett, Florida state organizer for the National Council of Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls, says she thinks the number of positive tests is much worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I have no doubt that the numbers are drastically higher than what they are producing,” she states. “We’re fortunate that they did do testing. Blackwater is a facility that is privately run, so they are doing testing, We don’t really believe that a lot of these other prisons are doing the testing.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The department has not responded to a request for comment, and the News Service of Florida is reporting that facility has kept the fatalities secret for nearly a week, with information coming from the local medical examiner’s office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bennett also runs a nonprofit group called Change Comes Now, which advocates on behalf of people in prisons. She says individuals are vulnerable behind bars, because social distancing is impossible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bennett adds if any staff member tests positive, everyone in the population should get tested and appropriate care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I lived inside these prisons for many years,” she relates. “Medical inside the Department of Corrections, on a very good day, medical attention is horrible.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Department of Corrections website states that any employees testing positive for the virus are not allowed to work until cleared by a medical professional. If a person serving a prison sentence shows symptoms, that person will be placed in medical isolation, pending testing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first two deaths in Florida’s prison system related to the coronavirus comes as the system is seeing a spike in both staff and people serving time testing positive for… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":46404,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[128],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46403"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}