“The number of active COVID-19 cases among Michigan’s prisoners has reached what’s believed to be an all-time high during the pandemic, with 4,010 current infections in facilities across the state as of Thursday.
And last week, the Department of Corrections reported a record number of new cases in a single day, logging a staggering 1,137 additional prisoner and staff cases on Nov. 12.
All of Michigan’s 29 prisons have at least one active infection among prisoners or staff, department spokesman Chris Gautz said. The hardest hit is Central Michigan Correctional Facility in St. Louis, which has 1,058 active prisoner cases. The outbreak there began Nov. 6, with the first infections confirmed among employees, Gautz said. Prior to that, the facility had five prisoner cases from earlier in the pandemic.
Kinross Correctional Facility in the Upper Peninsula has the second largest outbreak with 775 active prisoner cases. No deaths associated with the virus have been reported at Kinross or Central Michigan correctional facilities.”
Click Here to Learn More from MDOC Response to COVID-19
As COVID continues to rise dramatically in Michigan’s prisons. Every prison in the state now has positive cases. In this second wave (or third depending on what source one is reading), staff have been deeply impacted and infected. The prison communities where staff live are also impacted by the wide spread in prisons.
At Michigan Justice Advocacy we question the handling of the virus by the MDOC and the lack of transparency to the public about the pandemic response plans that might be being utilized around the state. This virus is not going away.
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