Another Oregon inmate has died from coronavirus, bringing the total of in-custody deaths to 42. According to the Department of Corrections, the inmate was at Two Rivers Correctional Institution in Umatilla. The inmate was anywhere between 70 to 80 years old. The DOC says it has started vaccinating some staff as well as following the health and safety guidelines at its facilities. Advocates have called for inmates to be vaccinated as soon as.
‘It’s just a matter of time’: Inmates detail horrid conditions amid COVID spike in Oregon prisons
Updated Jan 30, 2021;
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Frances Lanegan has watched with a growing sense of dread over the past month as coronavirus cases have exploded where she lives.
Her home for the moment is Coffee Creek Correctional Institution. Lanegan, a 56-year-old inmate, is serving a three-year sentence after a drug conviction last year. Of the 219 coronavirus cases at the Wilsonville facility since the beginning of the pandemic, 164 have been diagnosed in the past three weeks.
She and her cellmate both tested negative on Dec. 19 and 28, but when tested again on Jan. 6, Lanegan’s cellmate tested positive, though she did not. Lanegan expected to be moved, but when she asked the guards, they told her that since she had already been exposed, she would be staying with her infected cellmate.
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Juan Daniel Tristan, right, with his brother Paul, center, and nephew. Tristan was incarcerated for more than two decades and died this month, at 58, at the Salem Hospital. Prison officials took him from the Oregon State Penitentiary to the hospital on Dec. 26 where the hospital staff said he had multiple organ failure, pneumonia and sepsis, and tested positive for COVID-19.
So far, at least 41 Oregon prisoners have died during the pandemic after testing positive for the virus.
For more than two decades, Juan Daniel Tristan was an inmate, most recently at the Oregon State Penitentiary. On Dec. 26, he was admitted to Salem Hospital.