PICKAWAY – Pickaway Correction institution is reporting more positive cases of COVID-19 within the walls of the facility.
According to the CDC, PCI is now reporting that 93 Staff people have been Infected with COVID-19 and one person, a nurse has died. PCI is also reporting that 1,473 inmates have been tested positive 21 people have died, 2 are probable. CRC the sister location that is on the same campus is reporting 11 staff members, 41 inmates that have tested positive for the virus.
During todays press conference Gov. Dewine spoke with Annette Chamber Smith Director of Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections, on what is going on with two prisons that have seen widespread infection within their facilities.
Smith said that they closed down visitors in early March and were the 2nd State in the country to lock down our prisons in plan to protect the virus from getting into our correction facilities.
When they started seeing symptoms of the virus in prisons like Marion and Pickaway, Dewine mandated testing everyone because both locations have more older inmates, medical facilities, Pickaway is a dialysis unit and long-term facility. After testing everyone the prisons realized COVID-19 was widespread they found out 80-90% were asymptomatic, so they had to treat the entire system as infected.
Smith said the heroes are the staff at these facilities, going into these facilities knowing that the virus is widespread and still doing their jobs. They changed leave hours, they test and check staff members to make sure they are not sick when they go home or come into the facility. She wanted to remind these workers that many hotels are offering free rooms for showering or even to stay there and not go home to bring the virus home to their families.
