More coronavirus cases reported at Westmoreland jail

Westmoreland County Prison has 38 active cases of the coronavirus in inmates, Warden Bryan Kline said Monday.

Nine prisoners at the Hempfield lockup are considered to have recovered after previously testing positive, he said. Those with active infections are being quarantined throughout the jail.

There has been an increase in the number of hearings held by video from the jail, he said, as a result of a court order last week halting prisoner transports to the courthouse and district court buildings until further notice.

“Hopefully, without people coming in and out” the case numbers will subside, Kline said.

The first positive tests came on March 10 after the virus was cleared from the jail in January. The inmates who have contracted the virus are being monitored by medical staff and no one has been hospitalized with covid-19, he said. There were 515 inmates at the jail Monday.

The last new positive case was on Thursday, Kline said.

“If there were other positive inmates, then the whole unit was tested,” he said.

A meeting with state corrections officials regarding inmate vaccinations planned for last week is being rescheduled.

New jail commitments are being tested upon arrival and quarantined for 14 days. If those new prisoners have a negative test at the end of the quarantine period, they are moved into the general population. Employees and attorneys visiting the facility are subject to temperature checks. The first inmate there tested positive in July.

In-person visitation has been prohibited for the past year. Some guards have gotten vaccinated.

The number of new cases countywide has been increasing in recent weeks after dipping in late February and early March. The current numbers are still far lower than spikes in December and early January, according to state department of health figures.