BREAKING: Arizona Department of Corrections announces 517 inmates in just one unit of the Tucson prison have tested positive for COVID-19. THIS IS NEARLY HALF THE UNIT! @AZCorrections sent the press release just as initial primary election results were released in Arizona 
Up until today ADC had only reported 890 COVID-19 positive inmates statewide - now they are disclosing 517 new infections in just one unit!!!
Just talked w/@KatiButera, whose husband lives @ Whetstone. He tested positive today, with 516 other inmates, for COVID-19. She says the whole yard was tested last Thursday, & the results came today at noon.
"If half the yard tested positive last week, they all must have it now"
"If half the yard tested positive last week, they all must have it now"
"The day before they tested he woke up with a really bad headache. The following night he had night sweats and chills the whole night." Butera says others have been reporting symptoms the past week as well while they waited on the test results.
Hundreds of men live in dormitory settings in this prison unit. Butera says as of tonight, at 8 pm, her husband and the other men who tested positive had not been separated or quarantined from the rest of the inmates!!
"People are in an uproar about it" she said.
"People are in an uproar about it" she said.
This is hitting Tucson just after a recent inmate walkout took place where inmates expressed their frustration over the way an inmate death was handled by ADC, the lack of testing, and the continued inmate movements
Butera says the men were still being sent to other units to work jobs, and inmates have been moved into her husband's unit recently from other units. I asked her what she would say to @dougducey and @AZCorrections.
"I just feel like the system has totally failed us."
"I just feel like the system has totally failed us."
"We all know our loved ones have been moved around, unit to unit, after (ADC) told us they weren't going to be doing that - and that has contributed to the spread," Butera said.
Butera says ADC officials and health care workers previously told her husband "they were just going to let the virus spread, because they can't stop it, and whoever gets sick will get sick."
This is an email from 9 pm tonight sent from Butera's husband's tablet at Whetstone: "My dorm is now a positive dorm."
Throwback to the first week of April when @AZCorrections Director David Shinn was telling state lawmakers "because there still were no confirmed cases among inmates, he thinks Arizona prisons are some of the safest places to be right now" kjzz.org/content/152060…
Story: More Than 500 Inmates Test Positive For COVID-19 At State Prison In Tucson bit.ly/30sDINP
Still no update reflecting this huge increase in positive test results on the ADC dashboard - unclear if other mass testing is happening - please contact me if your loved one notices an increase in testing at the prison where they live jjenkins@kjzz.org corrections.az.gov/adcrr-covid-19…
