NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- Three Department of Correction officers have tested positive for coronavirus, officials said Thursday, a day after it emerged that an inmate and another correction officer at Rikers Island had also tested positive.
One of the three officer has been hospitalized, another is asymptomatic and the status of the third officer is unclear.
Also announced Thursday is that at least eight inmates have been separated from the Rikers population because of coronavirus-like symptoms.
The head of the correction officers' union on Wednesday said he is concerned about an outbreak.
Elias Husamudeen, president of the Correction Officers Benevolent Association, said in a statement, "This crisis will grow worse with each passing day. Give us the help we need now!"
Husamudeen said the city needs to provide new face masks for correction officers that better protect them from the virus than the paper N95 masks.
Brooklyn Defender Services, which provides criminal, civil, family and immigration legal defense, said in a statement, "Both an incarcerated person & an officer at Rikers have officially tested positive for COVID-19. We must immediately release people in jails & prisons who are at-risk of serious health complications from the virus and do everything possible to stop new jail admissions."
A civilian investigator with the Department of Correction died Sunday from the coronavirus, as well.
