For the first time in more than a month, all Covid-19 tests conducted Monday at the Northern State Correctional Facility in Newport came back negative.
The results mark a milestone in recovering from a Covid outbreak at the prison. The initial 22 cases at the prison were detected in testing conducted Feb. 23.
Since then, each new round of twice-a-week testing at the prison brought back a slow stream of positive results, except for March 3, when 100 new cases were detected among residents.
In all, 179 inmates and 24 staff members tested positive during the outbreak. The prison typically houses around 350 people.
The new tests, showing no additional cases, “are the results our team has been tirelessly working toward since February,” Corrections Commissioner Jim Baker said in a statement Wednesday. “We will continue to test the facility and monitor the situation closely. We aren’t in the clear yet, but today is encouraging.”
Now, two inmates and three staff members remain positive for the virus, while the rest have been medically cleared to leave isolation, meaning they are no longer exhibiting symptoms considered Covid-positive, according to the corrections department.
Statewide, a total of nine staff and two incarcerated people remain positive for the virus as of Wednesday.
Another round of testing is scheduled at Northern State on Thursday, with two additional testing dates planned beyond that.
After an investigation into how the virus initially entered the prison, Mike Smith, secretary of the Agency of Human Services, offered two theories earlier this month for the spread inside the facility. The first was that a corrections worker brought the virus into the prison from the outside. The second was that the virus could have spread through mouth-to-mouth swapping of diverted opioid treatment medications between inmates.
Despite Smith’s clarification that the second possibility was only a theory, the idea was widely criticized by scientists and experts as scientifically unsound and shifting blame onto inmates.
Additionally, despite significant outcry from advocates and state leaders, incarcerated Vermonters have yet to be prioritized for the Covid vaccine. Instead, the state is vaccinating only those inmates who qualify under age-banding or other conditions.
