11th SCDC inmate dies from coronavirus complications
An 11th person inmate in the South Carolina Department of Corrections has died from complications related to COVID-19, the department announced Thursday.
Ernest Strong Sr., 77, tested positive for the novel coronavirus on July 15 in Perry Correctional Institution and was hospitalized on July 27. He died Thursday.
The Department of Corrections did not say whether Strong had any underlying medical conditions. Many of the previous inmates who died after testing positive for the virus also had other conditions.
Strong was one of more than 1,000 SCDC inmates to test positive for the virus — out of a population of 16,340 offenders, there have been 1,056 confirmed cases, or roughly 6.5%. Of the positive cases, 253 have recovered completely. A total of 305 staff members have also tested positive, with 196 recoveries.
At Perry Correctional, 123 offenders and 37 staff members have tested positive. Strong is the second inmate from the facility to die with COVID in less than two weeks. 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 (274), Kirkland (139), and MacDougall (222) correctional institutions.
Strong was serving a life sentence at Perry after being convicted of murder in Anderson County in 1997.
The first prisoner in South Carolina to test positive for COVID-19 was reported in April. Since then, the Department of Corrections has twice suspended receiving any new inmates from county facilities — first at Kirkland Correctional Institution, then again in July at Lieber Correctional, where intake services had been moved from Kirkland.
