HARRISBURG, Pa. - More than 44,000 inmates in Pennsylvania state prisons are now under quarantine.
The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections announced it has implemented a statewide inmate quarantine amid the virus outbreak.
It went into effect at 10 p.m. Sunday, hours after state officials announced an inmate at SCI Phoenix in Montgomery County had tested positive for COVID-19.
"We must take this step to contain the virus to one facility and to keep it from spreading throughout the system. I don’t want to wait until we have several cases in our system to act. We’re taking this proactive measure now," said John Wetzel, secretary of the Department of Corrections.
The quarantine means inmates will be fed in their cells and will be given in-cell programming.
Inmates will be given out-of-cell time for video visits, phone calls and access to the law library, but all inmate movement will be controlled to meet social distancing recommendations, officials said.
The state Department of Corrections houses nearly 44,600 inmates in 25 state prisons. County prisons are not operated by the DOC and thus not impacted by this quarantine.