CAMP HILL, Pa. — The state department of corrections is reporting that an inmate at SCI Camp Hill died Thursday due to COVID-19.
The 53-year-old inmate, who had been in the hospital since Aug. 21, was serving a 3-year, 4-month to 10-year sentence for drugs, according to officials.
“One death is too many,” corrections secretary John Wetzel said in a release. “And one death is proof that we need to continue our battle against this invisible enemy.”
This is the department of corrections' twelfth inmate death due to the coronavirus.
As of Thursday, 41 SCI Camp Hill employees have reported testing positive for COVID-19. Prison officials say 13 of those individuals are active cases. Employees who have tested positive must isolate at their homes and cannot return to work until they provide a doctor’s note clearing them to return.
The prison reports 9 inmate COVID-19 cases, all of which are in isolation either at the prison’s infirmary or local hospitals, officials said.
Several housing units remain under enhanced quarantine due to one or more inmates from each unit testing positive for COVID-19. During enhanced quarantine, medical staff checks inmates’ conditions, including temperatures, at least twice daily, officials said.
Inmates who have tested positive have been moved to the prison’s infirmary and require care that prison medical staff can’t provide are taken to local hospitals to receive care, according to prison officials.
Prison officials say to mitigate the spread of the virus at the prison, there will be a deep cleaning, pausing the acceptance of new commitments from county prisons for two cycles and temporarily suspending outgoing transfers to other institutions.
