First California prison employee dies of coronavirus

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) California’s state prison system has had its first known staff death due to the coronavirus.

California Rehabilitation Center Correctional Officer Danny Mendoza died Saturday in Riverside County after recently testing positive for the coronavirus.

The prison department says more than 300 state corrections department employees have tested positive, but more than half of those have returned to work.

An inmate at the California Institution for Men in San Bernardino County died Sunday at an outside hospital from what appear to be coronavirus complications. It would be the 10th such inmate death, all at the same prison.