TUCSON, AZ — The first fatality from the coronavirus in Arizona prisons came two weeks ago when a 64-year-old inmate with diabetes died at a hospital in Tucson.

Pima County Medical Examiner Gregory Hess said Joseph Assyd died as a result of COVID-19 after suffering a respiratory infection.

Over the last week, corrections officials have declined to say whether any prisoners had died from the virus.

Assyd was serving a life sentence for convictions in 1995 for murder and kidnapping.

Forty-four of the nearly 42,000 Arizona prisoners have tested positive for the virus