Two Australian prison staff test positive #COVID19 #coronavirus #UK #pandemic #quarantine #australia #PrisonStaff

In Australia meanwhile, two staff members at a New South Wales prison hospital have tested positive for Covid-19, raising further concerns about outbreaks in detention facilities.

The two people are employees at the Long Bay forensic hospital, a 135-bed facility in the Long Bay Correctional Complex. Four patients have subsequently been tested after showing symptoms.

All face to face visits to inmates in the nation’s jails and prison hospitals were banned last week, as part of tougher distancing measures decided by the national cabinet.

State, territory and federal corrections and justice ministers are meeting today to discuss managing prisons during the pandemic.

NSW and the Northern Territory have already announced some prisoners could be released early under new emergency powers, on a case-by-case basis.

It follows a prison guard at Wolston Correctional Centre at Wacol in Queensland also being diagnosed with Covid-19.

The officer had contact with other staff and prisoners during a number of shifts over the weekend and Monday.

Queensland’s Aboriginal legal service is calling for a national, co-ordinated approach, to clarify what types of offences might be considered for conditional release. It’s worried that the virus will spread fast in prisons, where a high number of inmates are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders and have comorbidities which make them particularly vulnerable.

Courtesy of theguardian.com