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(CNN Spanish) -
The Puerto Rico Department of Correction and Rehabilitation ordered a total closure of visits to the island's prisons from November 11 to 30 amid a rebound in covid-19 cases in four correctional institutions.
The closure excludes the Social Treatment Centers.
As the Department said in a statement, the directive, in addition to suspending family visits, implies the cancellation of the departures of the adornment brigades, transfers between institutions, activities inside and outside the institutions and the movement of inmates. to work at other correctional institutions.
It also establishes strict compliance with quarantine periods.
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The agency says that it also activated the current protocol against covid-19 and that the inmates are cared for by medical personnel from the institution since none have required hospitalization.
The Secretary of the Department, Ana Escobar Pabón, reported that the West Detention Center in Mayagüez registered the highest number of cases with 129 inmates and two infected prison agents.
It is followed by the Zarzal de Río Grande Camp with 90 cases among the inmates, the Sabana Hoyos 384 Annex in Arecibo with 44 inmates and four agents with covid-19, and Ponce Principal, where nine infections were confirmed.
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Escobar Pabón sought to calm the relatives of the inmates and highlighted in the statement that "in the Department of Correction and Rehabilitation we have an epidemiologist assigned by the Department of Health and together with Physician Correctional personnel, various strategies are being worked on to control the spread of the virus, among these the carrying out of molecular tests and the isolation of infected inmates in the same module ”.