Staff retention is a long-standing issue within the Indiana Department of Correction. There are consistently hundreds of vacancies across the states 18 adult prisons. But the problem has gotten worse during the pandemic.

After new coronavirus cases were found last week at the Miami Correctional Facility, a team from the Indiana State Department of Health visited the prison over the weekend to do rapid testing

Soldiers from the Indiana Army National Guard began working at the Miami Correctional Facility during the second week of August, said prison spokesman James Frye.

The August surge is concentrated in two facilities. The Putnamville Correctional Facility has seen 86 cases, and the New Castle Correctional Facility has 72 new cases.

The conditions have prompted health and fire safety concerns from advocates, politicians -- even employees -- especially in recent weeks as temperatures climbed.

Many governors have ordered the release of certain inmates to help with social distancing in prisons. In Indiana, Gov. Eric Holcomb has resisted calls to do that, leaving it to county courts to depopulate prisons. Most of them haven't.

State Rep. Karlee Macer (D-Speedway) and State Sen. J.D. Ford (D-Indianapolis) spoke outside the Indiana Women's Prison on Saturday to highlight safety concerns connected to the facility's response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to internal documents, Indiana broke with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's guidance for prisons, which says that staff should self-quarantine for 14 days after close contact with an infected person.

Families say prisons refuse to disclose basic information that would put them at ease, including whether an inmate is alive. In some cases, families didnt know their loved ones were sick until after they had died -- even though a department policy calls for notification when death may be imminent.

Prisoner accounts contradict a statement the Indiana Department of Correction released after 73-year-old inmate Scottie Edwards' death, and raise questions about the care inmates receive for COVID-19.