Westmoreland jail virus outbreak explodes

The coronavirus outbreak at Westmoreland County Prison continued to grow over the Columbus Day weekend and, on Tuesday, officials said the number of cases could result in overcrowding at the Hempfield lockup.

Another 33 inmates and two more guards tested positive for the virus since late last week, county commissioners said. That brings the total number of infected inmates to 36 in addition to the four guards who tested positive. All but three of the infected inmates were asymptomatic, Warden John Walton said.

“This is what we feared. It happens, you get one case, then it runs rampant,” Walton said.

All of the inmate cases so far are confined to the facility’s J unit, an overflow area that can house up to 50 inmates. Inmates in that unit are restricted and not allowed into other sections of the jail nor permitted to attend hearings at local magistrate offices or the courthouse. Inmates confined in other locations have been permitted to move about the facility and to attend court hearings if required to do so, Walton said.

The first positive cases among jail inmates were reported late last week after two guards tested positive for the coronavirus.

As of Tuesday, there were 491 inmates in the jail, which has a capacity of 723.

“We’re following department of corrections and department of health protocols. As of now, it’s just the one unit, and we’re hoping it just stays on that one unit,” Commissioner Sean Kertes said.

With one unit in isolation and another used exclusively to quarantine new inmates, Walton said the jail only has 14 beds available in the facility’s general population areas.

Meanwhile, commissioners on Tuesday awarded a $199,000 contract to Reynolds Energy Services Inc. of Harrisburg to build 24 negative pressure cells at the jail to house coronavirus patients. Those cells are expected to limit airflow around infected inmates to just the areas where they are housed and not throughout the entire jail.

“This has been in the works for two months and something we decided to do over the summer,” Commissioner Gina Cerilli said.

Walton said construction could begin next week.