Officials say a spike in positive COVID-19 cases in Henry County since Thursday can be traced to an outbreak among inmates at the Mount Pleasant Correctional Facility.
According to Deputy Warden Marcy Stroud, there are 33 positive cases and all but three are asymptomatic. There are also two staff members who tested positive.
“Offenders are not allowed to move about the building. They have to stay in their units,” Stroud said. “The units that have actually had positive cases, those positive guys have been moved off into one unit together, so we have those 33 guys in that particular unit. The other units that they came from are in what we consider a hard quarantine, so they are not allowed to leave their room except for one room at a time to go shower, use the restroom, get ice and drinking water — that sort of thing.”
Stroud also said testing will continue. She said it’s still not known how the virus came into the facility.
The Iowa Department of Corrections website indicates nearly 600 of the 860 inmates at the minimum security prison in Mount Pleasant have been tested. About 260 employees work at the facility, but the agency does not indicate how many staff members have been tested.
The state’s coronavirus website indicates at midday Friday Henry County’s 14-day positivity rate for Covid tests was 13.6%.
(By Theresa Rose, KILJ, Mt. Pleasant)