Westmoreland jail free of coronavirus for 1st time since March

Westmoreland County prison officials said Tuesday, for the first time since early March, there are no active coronavirus cases among inmates and staff at the jail.

“It has been challenging,” Warden Bryan Kline said about the last three months in which more than 100 inmates were infected with the virus as part of a second outbreak at the facility. “Proper procedures were put in place to ensure everyone’s health and safety. I have to give credit to the correctional officers and medical department for their dedication and having the ability to adapt.”

More than 150 coronavirus cases were diagnosed as part of the jail’s first outbreak, discovered in November, which forced the facility to go into lockdown and halted the transporting of inmates for hearings at the courthouse and local magistrate offices. After a short reprieve in February, new infections among inmates resurfaced. The first case in the second outbreak was diagnosed March 8, Kline said.

Since then, there has been at least one active coronavirus case among inmates until Tuesday.

In response to the rash of positive cases over the last several months, officials quarantined and tested new inmates before being placed among the jail’s general inmate population. Kline said those precautions will continue.

“This virus is unpredictable and the spread of it is untraceable, which makes the future spread of it unpredictable,” Kline said

Inmate transfers resumed last month and social service programs for inmates were restarted Tuesday. In-person visits with inmates are set to begin June 7 after being suspended for more than a year because of the pandemic.

Meanwhile, Kline said last week that about 35% in inmates were administered first doses of the covid-19 vaccine. A second vaccination clinic, for both first and second doses, will be conducted later this month.