Covid claims the life of Missouri state prisioners

COVID-19 has claimed the lives of five state prisoners and two state prison workers.

Missouri Department of Corrections spokeswoman Karen Pojmann says six of the deaths have happened since September. The other one happened in April.

Pojmann says in all of the offender cases, the patients were older than 60 and had other serious medical conditions.

The department is not releasing information about which prisons the inmates and workers are from. Missouri has 22 prisons.

Data on the agency’s website shows a total of more than 1,300 inmates and workers are currently infected with the virus.