WASHINGTON (AP) —

U.S. officials are reporting two more deaths and additional cases of vision loss linked to eyedrops tainted with a drug-resistant bacteria.

The eyedrops from EzriCare and Delsam Phama were recalled in February and health authorities are continuing to track infections as they investigate the outbreak.

In the latest government tally, 68 people were diagnosed with infections from the bacteria, which has now caused a total of three deaths and eight cases of people losing their vision, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Tuesday. That’s up from one death and five cases of permanent vision loss reported last month.

The CDC said four people have undergone surgery to remove an eyeball due him, according to police video and officials. Cox was lying motionless on the floor and Diaz called paramedics. However, Diaz told them to meet him at the station instead of waiting for them — a violation of department policy, Jacobson has said.

At the station, some of the officers mocked Cox and accused him of being drunk and faking his injuries, according to surveillance and bodyworn camera footage. Officers dragged Cox by his feet out of the van and placed him in a holding cell prior to his eventual transfer to a hospital.

The five officers have pleaded not guilty to second-degree reckless endangerment and cruelty to persons — misdemeanor charges criticized as too light by Cox’s family and lawyers.

The case has drawn outrage from civil rights advocates like the NAACP, along with comparisons to the Freddie Gray case in Baltimore. Gray, who was also Black, died in 2015 after he suffered a spinal injury while handcuffed and shackled in a city police van.

Gregory Cerritelli, a lawyer for Segui, said the officers are “scapegoats” for the department’s “inadequate training and policies.”

“The entire process lacks fundamental fairness,” Cerretelli said about the internal affairs investigations.

Lavandier’s attorney, Dan Ford, said the chief’s recommendation to fire her was “premature.”

Messages seeking comment were left for the other officers’ lawyers.

Cox is suing the officers and city for $100 million in federal court for alleged negligence, excessive use of force, failing to provide immediate medical care, assault and intentional infliction of emotional distress, among other claims.

In court documents, the officers and the city deny the lawsuit allegations. to the infections.

The outbreak is considered particularly worrisome because the bacteria driving it is resistant to standard antibiotics.

The CDC has now identified cases in 16 states, including California, New York, Illinois, Texas and Pennsylvania. Most of the cases have been linked to four regional clusters and Ezricare’s drops are the only product used by patients in each of those groups.

The recalled drops were manufactured by Global Pharma Healthcare in India, where the bacteria — Pseudomonas aeruginosa — is commonly linked to outbreaks in hospitals. It can spread through contaminated hands or medical equipment.

“There are very, very small-minded supporters of Trump that will see this prosecution as persecution and will heed his call to protest or do something which could lead to someone being hurt and/or killed,” U.S. Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., told theGrio. “Trump doesn’t care” about the potential harm he could cause by rallying his base of supporters.

U.S. Congresswoman Stacey Plaskett, who served as an impeachment manager in Trump’s second impeachment trial in 2021, acknowledged the threats made against her and fellow Democrats in the House of Representatives — including Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., who led the House probe into Trump’s involvement in the Jan. 6 riot — for speaking out against Trump and Republicans in Congress.

“All of us get threats on a regular basis, but we’ve decided that we are going to uphold the law and that our country is worth it,” said the delegate for the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Plaskett said Trump going after James, Willis, and — most recently — Bragg speaks to his “white fragility” and “white privilege.”

She added, “He doesn’t believe that a Black person should be in a position to question him.”

Regarding the significance of the ethnic background of three of several prosecutors investigating Trump, Bowman said he sees it as “poetic justice” that a Black person is leading the indictment and “hopefully the conviction and accountability [for] Trump’s behavior.”

The congressman said, “America needs a reckoning and Trump is central to that reckoning and his accountability is central to that reckoning.”

Several said that they see Bragg’s looming indictment of Trump — and the potential others to follow — as an ironic reflection of the criminal justice system.

Coley, who counseled U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland on communications in his previous post, said, “there is a deep and abiding sense in Black America that there are two systems of justice: one for the rich and the powerful, and another one for everyone else.”

He continued, “That’s why I think so many African Americans are following these Trump cases so closely — [because] accountability finally appears to be at hand.”

Democratic strategist Alencia Johnson says there’s likely an understanding among Bragg, James and Willis as Black elected legal officials about their responsibility to hold Trump accountable for not just the harms he’s done to “our communities” but the fact that he thinks that he’s above the law.

“Black people, at times, we are the ones that are actually trying to protect democracy,” Johnson told theGrio. “Even when democracy functions, we are still getting the bread crumbs, but we have such a responsibility to make sure that those in power are not abusing power.”

It goes without saying that the indictment of a former U.S. president is unprecedented. In this case, it could lead Trump supporters to engage in violent protests like the Jan. 6 insurrection and Charlottesville riot.

Greer sees a connection between the violent protests and Trump’s “racially coded language” in his speech about Black prosecutors like Bragg, James and Willis. “He uses racist language because in the same breath that he’s saying this is reverse racism … he’s also telling his supporters, I want you to go to the streets and protest,” said Greer, who noted that Trump voters carried racist symbols like confederate flags and swastikas while taking to the streets.

She continued, “Donald Trump has always — especially since he’s been president and post-president — used this type of language whenever he has to talk about a person of color that he doesn’t like, but especially when it comes to Black people.”

Plaskett said Trump’s injecting race into cases that ultimately have nothing to do with race is his attempt to “draw attention to the fact that these are Black people that are … trying to bring a white man to justice.”

The former New York prosecutor added, “It’s not really a dog whistle. It’s just straight up trying to call a clarion call to individuals who are, in fact, racist. To remind them of that.”

Johnson said Trump’s focus on Bragg’s race is part of a broader pattern of behavior toward any Black person he sees as his political enemy. “This is another attack on a Black person in power in the same way we saw him go after Black journalists, Black lawmakers, and now he’s going after Black attorneys as well.”

Coley said that while Trump uses “race, racist language and racist overtones to divide people,” the focus for Bragg and the other prosecutors probing the former president should be about the rule of law.

“Alvin Bragg’s one and only charge is to pursue justice without fear or favor and he has to remain focused on that mission and that mission alone,” he said.