Washington, April 16 (RHC)-- In the U.S. state of Ohio, the head of a prison guards’ union says a fifth prisoner has died of COVID-19 at the Elkton Federal Correctional Institution, where 36 prisoners and 26 staff members have tested positive. 

Elsewhere, Virginia, Maryland, South Carolina, Ohio and Indiana have reported the first COVID-19 deaths of people in state prisons.  A prisoner at the D.C. Central Detention Facility died of the disease on earlier this week, and at the Rikers Island jail here in New York, a second prisoner has died of COVID-19. 

In Michigan, where at least 10 incarcerated people have died, prisoners have filed a federal lawsuit alleging they’ve been given a “death sentence.”