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The last of six prisons in Vermont to undergo mass testing of inmates and staff has no new cases of Covid-19, resulting in the state reporting no prisoners across the state’s correctional system currently identified as having the coronavirus.
A total of 336 inmates and 181 staff at the Southern State Correctional Facility in Springfield, the state’s largest prison, were tested Monday for Covid-19, and the corrections department announced Thursday that the results all came back negative for the coronavirus.
The other five correctional facilities in the state had previously undergone mass testing of staff and inmates at a rate of one prison a week.
That earlier mass testing at four of those prisons — Northern State in Newport, Chittenden Regional in South Burlington, Marble Valley Regional in Rutland, and Northeast Correctional Complex in St. Johnsbury — also revealed no positive tests for Covid-19 among the inmates or staff.
The only prison that has had a positive test for Covid-19 among inmates was Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans, which had an outbreak in April, with 45 inmates and 18 staff members testing positive.
Most of those inmates at the St. Albans prison who tested positive were taken to the Northeast Correctional Complex in St. Johnsbury, which earlier had been identified as a “surge” facility to house prisoners across the correction system who tested positive for Covid-19.
All the inmates who tested positive and were moved to St. Johnsbury have since had two negative tests for the virus, and those who remain incarcerated have been returned to the prison system’s general population.
On Thursday, the corrections department listed no inmates across its facilities in Vermont who are currently identified as having Covid-19. Also, no inmates are listed as being in medical isolation due to showing symptoms of the virus.
A total of 1,219 inmates have been tested in the state’s six prisons in recent weeks, according to corrections department statistics.
James Baker, interim corrections commissioner, said in the statement announcing the latest test results that the work to prevent the spread of Covid-19 in the state’s prisons is a “collaborative” and “around-the-clock” effort.
No mass testing of Vermont inmates held out of state has been done. Vermont sends prisoners it does not have capacity to house in-state to the Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility in Tutwiler, Mississippi.
That facility is run by CoreCivic, one of the largest private prison operators in the country. Currently, 235 Vermont inmates are at the Mississippi facility.
According to the Vermont Department of Corrections, only two Vermont inmates there have been tested for the coronavirus since the pandemic began, and both results came back negative.
Rachel Feldman, a corrections department spokesperson, said Thursday that CoreCivic, the prison’s operator, is not mass testing its inmates, and only testing those who show symptoms for Covid-19.
The Vermont corrections department initially had a similar policy, under which only inmates who showed symptoms were tested; then, if an inmate tested positive, blanket testing at that prison would take place.
However, that changed after tests became more available and groups advocating on behalf of prisoners, including the Vermont chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, pushed for blanket testing of all inmates inside the state’s prison facilities.
According to the corrections department, as of Thursday the total incarcerated population for Vermont stood at 1,388, including 81 women, 1,072 men, and the 235 out-of-state inmates.
James Lyall, executive director of the Vermont ACLU, said Thursday he found the news of the latest testing results “encouraging,” but added that the work to protect prisoners from contracting the virus isn’t over.
“We would hope that the good news is communicated to people in those facilities, who along with their family members, have been contacting us for weeks in fear of another outbreak,” he said.
Lyall also called for blanket testing of all the Vermont inmates serving in the facility in Mississippi. He said the same rationale for the need to test inmates in Vermont facilities holds true for those in the Mississippi prison as well.
“They should be tested, they are Vermont prisoners,” he said.
And in Vermont, he said, it remains important to continue to test inmates periodically to help protect against an outbreak.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Vermont’s prisons appear to be Covid-free.