Staff and wire reports

Members of the National Guard are being trained to help at a second Ohio prison as coronavirus infections among correctional workers and prisoners continue to spread, the state prisons agency said Friday.

The 50 or so guard members will assist with “mission critical functions” at the Marion Correctional Institution, said JoEllen Smith, spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. The State Highway Patrol is also helping guard the prison’s perimeter, Smith said.

The assistance comes as the number of coronavirus cases in Marion County more than doubled in a day to nearly 1,000 on Saturday. Inmate infections are included in the county's total number.

According to the Ohio Department of Health, Marion County had 983 cases of coronavirus as of 2 p.m. Saturday, up from 428 on Friday. The updated total puts Marion County at having the third most cases of any county in the state, trailing only Cuyahoga and Franklin.

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The state released infected prisoners and correctional staff data on Friday, showing Marion Correctional Institution had 365 prisoners and at least 99 staff with confirmed COVID-19. The outbreak at the prison has been one of the main reasons the cases in Marion County have spiked from 103 confirmed cases on Tuesday.

Updated numbers for positive cases at the prison as of Saturday were not yet available., but Marion Public Health reported on Saturday that 80 of the Marion County cases were outside the prison. Prison officials noted that testing was completed on the nearly 2,500 inmates on Thursday, but they were still awaiting results on many of them on Friday. Gov. Mike DeWine on Friday said 60 prisoners who were not showing symptoms tested positive for COVID-19.

Marion Correctional Institution was the first prison to report a positive case of COVID-19 in a staff member on March 29. The staff member had last worked at the prison on March 24. Not long after, on April 3, the prison became the first to report a positive COVID-19 case in an Ohio prisoner.

The Ohio prison with the next highest numbers was Pickaway Correctional Institution, which as of Friday had 179 prisoners and at least 57 staff with COVID-19. Previously, the Pickaway facility, the other prison where National Guard assistance was sent, had registered more prisoners with the virus than the Marion facility.

The Pickaway prison is the only prison that has reported any prisoner deaths: four. One corrections officer has died from the virus, John Dawson, 55, of Mansfield, who worked at Marion Correctional.

Guards at Marion and elsewhere are being directed to work 12- and 16-hour shifts to compensate for the staff shortages, Christopher Mabe, president of the Ohio Civil Service Employees Association, said Friday.

Mabe himself is under quarantine with mild coronavirus symptoms after his wife, a guard at Lorain Correctional Institution, tested positive for the virus, the union said Friday.