An inmate at the St. Clair Correctional Facility has tested positive for COVID-19, becoming the seventh state inmate to test positive for the virus, the Alabama Department of Corrections announced late Monday.
The man tested positive “while he was at a local hospital where he received care for a non-COVID-19 related preexisting medical condition,” ADOC’s statement late Monday reads.
The inmate is the third inmate at St. Clair prison to test positive for the virus, and is the third statewide of seven who have tested positive for the virus and who were also tested for COVID-19 at outside hospitals while being treated for other medical conditions.
As of Monday evening, 89 of approximately 22,000 state inmates had been tested for the virus, which was less than half-a-percent, according to ADOC statistics. Just one percent of inmates at St. Clair Correctional Facility had been tested for the virus as of Monday.
In North Carolina’s Neuse Correctional Institution in Goldsboro, where prison administrators decided last month to test each of the approximately 770 inmates for the virus after signs of an outbreak there, those officials discovered more than 460 inmates tested positive for COVID-19, according to The Charlotte Observer.
In total, 16 ADOC workers at 10 facilities have tested positive for COVID-19, four of whom have been cleared by doctors to return to work, ADOC said.
Dave Thomas, 66, a terminally ill man serving at St. Clair Correctional Facility, died April 16 after testing positive for coronavirus.
