Nearly 70 active COVID-19 cases being reported at Pender Correctional

PENDER COUNTY, NC (WWAY) — The Pender Correctional Institution is battling an outbreak of the coronavirus with nearly 70 active cases among inmates.

According to the North Carolina Department of Public Safety, a total of 89 Pender inmates have tested positive for the virus, 11 of which are presumed recovered.

As of Wednesday morning, there were 69 inmates with COVID-19. The prison holds around 750 inmates.

In comparison, the New Hanover Correctional Center has no active cases and Columbus Correctional has nine.

“The Division of Prisons has taken more than four dozen actions to prevent COVID-19 from getting into the prisons, to help prevent it from spreading to other prisons and to confine it within a prison if it does get in,” John Bull with NCDPS wrote to WWAY.

Bull says offenders who test positive are separated from the rest of the inmates and placed in medical isolation.

“The housing units where the COVID-19 positive offenders were housed are placed under medical quarantine for close observation and twice daily temperature checks,” Bull wrote. “Any offender who subsequently shows symptoms of the virus is moved into medical isolation and tested for COVID-19. Each prison has medical protocols in place in the event an offender needs advanced medical care.”

Bull added, “all housing units at the prisons are cohorted, kept in groups, to prevent the mixing of offenders in one housing unit from those in other housing units. These ‘cohorted’ housing units go to chow together, to recreation time together, to pill call together, etc. This is a precautionary virus-mitigation strategy to better prevent the spread of the virus in a prison.”

NCDPS says all staff and offenders each have five to six cloth, three-ply face masks, and are required to wear them. The prison has ample cleaning supplies and extensive cleaning regimens in place.