Two inmates and an employee at the federal prison in Forrest City have tested positive for covid-19, according to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons.
The bureau said on its website Friday that 91 federal prisoners nationally had tested positive for the virus, including two at its low-security facility in Arkansas. The prison has bed space for 2,109 inmates, according to the bureau. An adjacent medium-security facility has space to house 1,146 inmates.
A single employee at the complex was among the 50 bureau staff nationwide who have tested positive, according to the bureau's website.
A spokesperson for the Federal Correctional Complex at Forrest City did not respond to a request for comment Friday afternoon.
[CORONAVIRUS: Click here for our complete coverage » arkansasonline.com/coronavirus]
The Arkansas Division of Correction, a separate prison system that holds more than 16,000 state inmates, has reported no cases of the virus. Two prisoners have been tested as of Friday, according to a state prison spokeswoman.
Dina Tyler, the spokeswoman, said none of the agency's more than 4,000 employees work at the federal prison complex.
Both the federal and state prison systems shut down all visitation services in March over fears of the coronavirus spreading into the enclosed facilities.
Speaking at the governor's daily press conference Thursday, Corrections Secretary Wendy Kelley warned of the enhanced threat the virus poses to prisoners and corrections staff.
"Once it gets in, it will be disastrous," she said.
The state Division of Correction has taken additional steps in hopes of keeping out the virus, including checking the temperature of staff entering the units and quarantining new inmates arriving from county jails. Still, critics have called on the prison system to more aggressively test inmates.
"You're not going to have people test positive if you're not testing people," said Holly Dickson, the interim director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas.
The Division of Correction announced earlier this week that a farm employee at the Cummins Unit tested positive for the virus. The employee did not typically work inside the prison walls, Tyler said.
Metro on 04/04/2020