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This story was updated at 6:58 p.m.
Vermont Agency of Human Services Secretary Mike Smith said mass testing of staff and inmates at the state’s only women’s prison following a positive test of one staff member has yielded no additional positive test results.
“That resulted in zero, zero more positives in that facility,” Smith said of the latest round of testing conducted Thursday at the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility.
Smith spoke of the latest testing results during Gov. Phil Scott’s Friday press conference.
However, while the results were welcome news, questions are being raised about the process the state is using to decide when it will test prisoners.
Al Cormier, facilities director for the Vermont Department of Corrections, said Friday afternoon the test results were a validation of the work the department and staff have done to keep inmates protected from the virus.
“I think it really speaks to the lengths and efforts the staff have put into place throughout the department,” he said, adding that those steps include working to promote social distancing inside the facility as well as cleaning and sanitizing.
James Lyall, executive director of the Vermont chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said more needs to be done to protect inmates, including when it comes to testing.
“It’s a relief they essentially dodged a bullet and it’s a relief to know nobody tested positive this time,” he said. “But that doesn’t change the fact that the administration is really gambling with the people in our correctional facilities.”
The widespread testing at Chittenden Regional was prompted by a staff member at the facility testing positive for the coronavirus earlier this week.
That earlier testing of some staff — 84 at Chittenden Regional volunteered to be tested — was the initial round of testing as part of an initiative announced late last month to test all corrections staff in the state.
That one positive test of a staff member prompted the mass testing Thursday of an additional 47 staff members and all 74 inmates at the facility.
The corrections department is now moving to test corrections staff at all other facilities. A positive test from at least one staff member at a facility will trigger the mass testing of inmates at that facility.
The Northeast Correctional Complex in St. Johnsbury, however, has a different protocol.
Cormier, of the corrections department, said that both inmates and staff at the St. Johnsbury facility will be tested since that site has served as a “surge” site for other inmates in the correctional system who have tested positive for the coronavirus.
Roughly two dozen of the inmates at the St. Johnsbury prison worked as kitchen crew for prisoners from Northwest Regional Correctional Facility in St. Albans who had earlier been transferred there after testing positive for Covid-19. A total of 45 inmates and 18 staff members at the St. Albans prison were infected.
After testing in St. Johnsbury, the staff at the Marble Valley Regional Correctional Facility in Rutland will be next up, followed by testing at the Northern State Correctional Facility in Newport, and then the Southern State Correctional Facility in Springfield.
Like what took place at Chittenden Regional, Cormier said, only correctional staff at each facility who volunteer to be tested will be tested unless at least one staff member at that site tests positive.
If a staff member at a facility tests positive, he said, that then triggers the widespread testing of all staff as well as inmates at that site.
Lyall, of the ACLU of Vermont, said that he doesn’t understand why the corrections department does not include inmates in the initial rounds of testing.
He points to comments made by Smith, the AHS secretary, during Friday’s press conference. During that event, Smith talked about the state’s expanding capacity to conduct tests.
“We’ve gone from having almost run out of test capacity to today where we can test at will just about anybody who wishes to have a test,” Smith said.
Also, pop-up testing sites around Vermont are being set up where people who are not symptomatic for the coronavirus can get tested by scheduling an appointment.
But, Lyall said, inmates who are not symptomatic and want a test are not being tested by the state as part of the corrections department initiative.
“It seems like literally the policy is anybody who wants to be tested can be tested unless they are incarcerated,” Lyall said. “I haven’t yet heard anything approaching a consistent or rational explanation for that double standard.”
He added, “They are the only people who can’t be tested if they want to even though they are some of the most vulnerable people by far.”
Asked why the corrections department isn’t testing the inmates in the initial round at each facility prior to a positive staff test result, Cormer replied, “The rationale behind that is the way this virus is going to come into a facility is from the outside.”
He added, “If it gets brought in, it’s going to be by a staff member. We want to ensure that the staff members are providing a negative test.”
If an inmate is showing symptoms of the coronavirus, he added, that inmate will be tested.
He said that the department’s procedures for deciding who to test and when has “evolved” over time, and that will continue.
“It’s something that we look at on a daily basis, we discuss, we process,” he said. Initially, he added, there wasn’t widespread testing of staff at each of the facilities that there is now prior to someone at that site testing positive.
Chittenden Regional is the third correctional facility that has had a positive test since March.
The Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans had its outbreak last month. Since that time, Cormier said, all the inmates who had tested positive and were sent to the St. Johnsbury “surge” facility have recovered and are no longer testing positive for the coronavirus.
Also, a worker at the Northern State Correctional Facility in Newport tested positive for the coronavirus in March.
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