Prison virus outbreak

Posted on September 2, 2020

Taylor County is not the only Big Bend county that has experienced a large-scale coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak at its state prison, with inmate cases making up half or more of the total number of cases reported in Taylor, Lafayette and Jefferson counties.

To date, 680 (representing 56%) of Taylor County’s positive cases have come from the inmate population at Taylor Correctional Institute (TCI), with the remaining 520 cases in the community at large.

To date, 680 (representing 56%) of Taylor County’s positive cases have come from the inmate population at Taylor Correctional Institute (TCI), with the remaining 520 cases in the community at large.

In Jefferson County, which has had the fewest reported COVID-19 cases of any of Taylor’s neighbors, there have been 257 cases reported at Jefferson Correctional Institute, making up 51.4% of the county’s 500 positive cases to date.

However, the numbers are even more lopsided in Lafayette County, where Mayo Correctional Institute (MCI) has the state’s third-highest number of positive inmate cases of any facility in the state, according to figures from the Florida Department of Corrections (DOC).

The 952 positive inmate cases reported at MCI are exceeded only by the 1,002 cases reported at Lowell Correctional Institution in Marion County and the 1,338 cases reported at Columbia Correctional Institution, according to DOC figures.

MCI’s inmate population is responsible for 79% of Lafayette County’s total 1,204 cases reported since the start of the outbreak.

By comparison, in Dixie County, the 257 positive cases reported among the inmates at Cross City Correctional Institution make up just 39% of the county’s 719 total COVID-19 cases.

Meanwhile, Madison Correctional Instutution has one of the lower COVID rates among its inmate population, with just 77 positive cases to date. This is just 8.8% of the county’s 868 cases reported so far.

Back in Taylor County, removing the 680 inmate cases — all of which were reported in August — from its overall figures, the rate of new cases fell by nearly half in August when compared to July.

In July, there were 277 new cases reported in Taylor County. In August, after removing the inmate cases, there were just 164 cases through Aug. 30.

A similar trend can be seen on the state level as well.

In July, 319,492 new cases were reported statewide, while in the first 30 days of August, the total number of cases reported was just 145,008.

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