Terminal Island federal prison. Photo courtesy the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

Two more inmates have died from COVID-19 after contracting the disease at the Terminal Island federal prison in San Pedro where more than half the facility’s occupants have now tested positive for coronavirus.

So far, four inmates have died, and least 570 have contracted COVID-19 along with 10 staffers, something the facility discovered after it started mass testing, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. That is, by far, the most confirmed cases at any federal prison.

The latest deaths comes as family members of vulnerable inmates call for their loved-ones to be released to home confinement, something federal officials say they’re prioritizing.

Terminal Island houses just over 1,000 low-level offenders, many of whom need specialized medical or mental health care. Federal officials have declined to say how many people have been transferred to home confinement from Terminal Island. Overall, 1,805 of the federal prison system’s 153,000 inmates have been released.

Prison officials said the third inmate to die was Rex Damon Begay Sr., an 80-year-old man serving a 10-year sentence after being convicted of sexually abusing a child.

Begay tested positive for COVID-19 on April 19, according to a press release. On April 20, he was taken to a local hospital and three days later, he was put on a ventilator, officials said. On Wednesday, hospital staff pronounced him dead.

The fourth inmate to die was 54-year-old Stephen Cino, who was serving a 24-year sentence in a drug distribution and money laundering case, according to prison officials.

Cino arrived at Terminal Island in January, the bureau of prisons said in a press release. On April 15, he was taken from the Terminal Island infirmary to a local hospital where he was placed on a ventilator a few days later. He tested positive for COVID-19 on April 23 and died on Wednesday, authorities said.

As the outbreak has mounted at Terminal Island, frustrated families have scrambled for information from the prison, which they say is being uncooperative.

“We’ve been going insane,” said one woman who hasn’t been able to get in touch with her father or prison officials. “No one’s giving us any information.”

The woman, who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation, said her father has severe underlying health conditions that mean he’s unlikely to survive if he catches coronavirus, but with communal phones and internet stations shut down to slow the outbreak, she has no way of knowing if he’s sick.

Although prison officials have regularly been sending press releases about inmates who die at federal facilities, that’s little comfort to family members. Another daughter of an inmate said she fears she’ll only find out if her father is sick after it’s too late.

“I was thinking to myself, God forbid if he were to die, would we find out from the press releases on the (Bureau of Prisons) website?” she said.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated with information about a fourth inmate’s death.

Jeremiah Dobruck is managing editor of the Long Beach Post. Reach him at [email protected] or @jeremiahdobruck on Twitter.