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This article was updated at 8:22 p.m.
The Vermont Department of Corrections announced Monday evening that a staff member at Northern State Correctional Facility in Newport has tested positive for the coronavirus.
“The staff member last worked on Tuesday, March 17 and the Department has obtained a list of all staff who had contact with the individual on their last day of work,” said a press release from the department Monday evening.
“The department is extending our support to this staff member in light of this news,” interim Corrections Commissioner Jim Baker said in a statement. “We respect the health care privacy of our staff and will not provide information that could lead to the identification of any staff member who may contract COVID19.”
The DOC is also taking “immediate steps to further protect the employees and inmates at the facility. These steps include a deep cleaning of the areas where the staff member worked and increased messaging to staff and inmates about hand washing and hygiene.”
Baker said Monday evening that the staffer works in a role that does not involve direct contact with the inmate population. The commissioner said that he could not specify what role that worker had at the facility because that could identify the person.
The commissioner said there is also an inmate at the Newport facility who has been placed in quarantine and is being monitored due to a “low-grade” fever. That inmate has not been tested for COVID-19 because he has not met the standards set for testing in the protocols provided by the state Department of Health, according to Baker.
“When and if they present those symptoms they will be tested,” he said.
“This is not the first time during the course of the last two or three weeks that we’ve had folks with fevers that we’ve put in quarantined, monitored, and treated the fever,” Baker added. “To this date we have not tested any inmates.”
If an inmate does test positive for COVID-19, Baker said, the department does have a plan in place to care for that inmate. “We have rooms that have negative pressure,” he said. “We’ll be able to treat and support an inmate who becomes ill.”
There were two positive COVID-19 cases in Orleans County, as of Monday afternoon information from the Vermont Department of Health. There are 75 cases total in Vermont, and five people have died.
Steve Howard, executive director of the Vermont State Employees Association, said early Monday evening that he had not heard of a staffer at the Newport facility testing positive for COVID-19 until contacted by a VTDigger reporter.
“I’m not surprised this has happened,” Howard said, adding that facilities such as prisons, where people are kept in close quarters, are particularly vulnerable to a virus.
Howard also raised concerns about the availability nationwide of personal protective equipment. “I don’t know if that had an impact on how this particular worker contracted COVID-19,” Howard added.
He said the DOC workers are on the frontlines and are putting a lot at risk going to work every day. “They are [in] hard jobs and then we complain about them,” Howard said.
Regarding personal protective equipment, Baker, the corrections commissioner, said the department has “enough for the immediate time.” He said the department has “balanced out the supply” through the correctional system.
“If the union thinks we don’t have enough, then someone from the union should really be calling me and telling me that,” he said. “We have a good number of PPE out there and we’re continuing to order supplies and we’re dealing directly with vendors we’ve identified.”
Advocacy groups for prisoners, such as the Vermont chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and Vermonters for Criminal Justice Reform, have been calling on corrections officials and the Scott administration to release as many prisoners “as possible.”
The groups have especially urged the release of inmates who have already served the minimum portions of their sentences and remain jailed for lack of approved housing, as well as those inmates who are vulnerable to COVID-19 due to their age and medical conditions.
The statement issued Monday by the corrections department said that all staff “entering a correctional facility are screened for symptoms, including a fever. Staff who present with symptoms are sent home in line with the guidance from the Department of Human Resources and instructed to contact their primary care provider.
Northern State Correctional Facility has 128 staff and an inmate population of 402. The overall population for all six facilities is 1,567 today. This is a decrease of 89 inmates since March 16, 2020.
Further, the policy prohibiting all in-person visitation and volunteer services effective on March 14, remains in effect for all facilities until further notice. GTL (the video visitation and communication provider for the department) continues to offer one free video visitation as well as two free five-minute calls per week to all inmates within the system.
