Updated at 4:23 p.m.
Northern State Correctional Facility in Newport is on “full lockdown” after 22 Covid-19 tests, conducted on Aug. 27, came back positive.
Of those new positive cases, 21 are among incarcerated people, and one is a staff member.
The cases add to an existing count at the prison — in total, 25 incarcerated people and seven staff members currently have Covid-19.
Of those 25 incarcerated people, 15 are vaccinated and 10 are unvaccinated. The facility has 406 incarcerated people, 77.7% of whom are vaccinated, according to Rachel Feldman, a spokesperson for Vermont Department of Corrections.
Feldman said two unvaccinated staff members at the prison became symptomatic and tested positive outside of the facility — one on Aug. 18, the other on Aug. 21. One of those staff members worked in a unit where many incarcerated people have now tested positive, Jim Baker, commissioner of the Department of Corrections, said on a call with reporters on Monday.
First, an incarcerated person tested positive after showing symptoms on Aug. 23. Three more incarcerated people in that unit tested positive on Aug. 24.
Of the 21 people whose Aug. 27 tests came back positive, 17 live in the unit, which houses a total of 71 prisoners. Officials have transitioned to a “surge unit” — those who have Covid-19 are isolated together, close contacts are isolated together and those who have been cleared so far are isolated in another section of the unit.
So far, three or four prisoners are showing symptoms, Baker said, including low-grade fevers and body aches. Oxygen levels are stable, and no one is hospitalized, he said.
Other individuals who tested positive come from three other units and the infirmary, a release from the department said.
Feldman said she cannot be completely sure that the cases began with the unvaccinated staff members.
A vaccine mandate for employees who work in prisons and other state facilities, which the department has been in the process of finalizing, will go into effect Sept. 1, Baker said. Starting Wednesday, employees will need to be vaccinated or submit to testing twice per week.
“We know, nationally, that you end up with situations where you have positive numbers inside a facility, and it’s tied to the area where the facilities are,” Baker said. “It’s community spread that brings it into the facilities. It concerns me.”
The department does not know the total number of staff members who have been vaccinated against the virus. Workers who are vaccinated outside of clinics held at the facility are not required to tell department officials of their vaccination status.
“The incarcerated population — their medical care is entirely in our hands and our medical contractors’ hands,” Feldman said. “So we can track all of that. When it comes to staff, there is medical privacy at play.”
She said 467 of 591 eligible facility staff received the vaccine at one of those in-house clinics — a vaccination rate of 79.9%.
Feldman said the department is not yet calling the new cases an “outbreak,” and said officials are conducting facility-wide testing on Monday before making that determination.
The department conducts two different types of testing, Feldman said. Surveillance testing is performed on a weekly basis, staff members are tested bi-weekly and the incarcerated population is tested on a rotating six-week basis. If officials see positive results, they move to outbreak testing “on a timetable that is meeting the best standards of care,” Feldman said. The department found the new cases through outbreak testing.
The Newport facility is the site of the largest Covid-19 outbreak in any Vermont prison. During testing on Feb. 23, one staff member and 22 incarcerated people tested positive. The outbreak then grew, ultimately resulting in 179 cases among incarcerated people and 24 among staff.
Mental health services are being provided to prisoners facing yet another lockdown, Baker said. The structure of the Newport facility means it’s particularly difficult to isolate incarcerated people, he said, which has contributed to virus spread.
“In hindsight, looking at how it got into the facility will be our priority so we can figure out better mitigation strategies,” Baker said.
As of Monday, there are positive cases in staff, the incarcerated population or both at five of Vermont’s six prisons, according to the release.
“We’re doing everything in our power, just like we have since the beginning of the pandemic, to make sure that we have medical supplies, staff expertise on the ground, to provide care to the individuals,” Baker said. “We do everything in our power to try to keep the virus out of the facilities.”
Across all of the state’s facilities, including Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility in Mississippi, the vaccination rate among incarcerated people is 80%.
Families and friends of incarcerated individuals who have questions can contact the Vermont Department of Corrections Office of Constituency Services.
