55-year-old is latest SC prison inmate to die after testing positive for COVID-19
A 55-year-old man became the ninth inmate at a South Carolina prison to die after testing positive for COVID-19, the Department of Corrections said Monday.
Carl Frazier Good, an inmate at Perry Correctional Institution, died Sunday at a hospital where he was being treated, Department of Corrections officials said in a news release. Good was confirmed to have the coronavirus on July 13, and was hospitalized July 20, according to the release.
The Department of Corrections did not say whether Good had any underlying medical conditions. Many of the previous inmates who died after testing positive for the virus also had other conditions.
As of Monday, 103 inmates and 26 staff members at Perry tested positive for COVID-19, officials said. One inmate has been cleared, and six employees have recovered, according to the Department of Corrections. The high-security prison in Pelzer is the fourth South Carolina prison where at least 100 inmates have been confirmed to have the coronavirus — joining Tyger River (238), Kirkland (127), and MacDougall (109) correctional institutions.
Across the 21 prisons in South Carolina operated by the Department of Corrections, there have been 729 confirmed cases of the coronavirus among inmates, according to the release. While 194 have recovered, more than 500 inmates are still active COVID-19 patients, officials said.
The first prisoner in South Carolina to test positive for COVID-19 was reported in April.
Overall, 135 of the 252 Department of Corrections staff members who have tested positive for the coronavirus have been cleared, according to prison officials.
Approximately 5,000 people work at the Department of Corrections, and there are 16,767 inmates in South Carolina prisons.
The Department of Corrections said it’s working closely with the state Department of Health and Environmental Control “to ensure proper guidelines and protocols are being followed to safely manage our staff and offenders,” according to the release.
After an inmate at Lieber Correctional Institution tested positive for COVID-19 in the first week of July, prison officials said they suspended receiving any new inmates from county facilities through at least the rest of the month.
This is the second time during the coronavirus pandemic that the Department of Corrections has stopped taking inmates from county detention centers, spokeswoman Chrysti Shain said.
The first suspension happened when cases of COVID-19 were confirmed at Kirkland, SCDC’s primary reception and evaluation center. Those intake responsibilities were then shifted to Lieber, and prison officials are now reevaluating the process of admitting new inmates, according to Shain.
“We’re not going to take a risk,” Shain said.
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