The New York City Department of Correction announced on Friday that two additional staffers tested positive for coronavirus, making a total of seven staffers and one inmate who have fallen ill with the disease.
A DOC spokesman did not immediately clarify if the staffers work at the department’s sprawling jail complex on Rikers Island.
The spokesman said that any staffers showing signs of suffering from a respiratory illness are immediately sent home and told to show a doctor’s note to get the all-clear before they can re-enter a city jail facility.
A DOC investigator who tested positive for COVID-19 became on Sunday the first coronavirus death within the city’s municipal workforce.
Three DOC staffers on Rikers are confirmed cases and eight inmates who showed coronavirus-like symptoms have been moved to an infectious disease unit.
The updated count from DOC comes as defense attorneys across the city have been fighting to get their clients out of Rikers and avoid what the facility’s top doc called as a coming “storm” of coronavirus cases.
The New York City Legal Aid Society filed a lawsuit against the DOC on Friday in Manhattan Supreme Court demanding the release of 116 inmates who it claims are vulnerable to serious health effects from catching the virus.
“To be clear, the public servants who care for those in your jails have been planning for this storm for weeks and months,” Correctional Health Services chief medical officer Ross MacDonald said in a tweet. “We will muster every tool of public health, science and medicine to try to keep our patients safe.”
Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Thursday that he plans to spring 40 vulnerable inmates from Rikers.
