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HOLLIDAYSBURG -- Forty-three inmates inside the Blair County Prison have tested positive for COVID-19 as of Tuesday, prompting the testing of all inmates and a lockdown restricting inmate movement inside the facility.
"Blair County is following all Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, Centers for Disease Control and Pennsylvania Department of Health guidelines to minimize the risk to the healthy inmates and the county correctional officers caring for the inmate population," the county reported Tuesday in a news release issued on behalf of the prison board.
The spike in county inmate COVID-19 cases comes at a time when Blair County's COVID-19 cases have spiked. As of Tuesday, the state Department of Health reported Blair County with 4,412 cases and 66 deaths attributed to COVID-19.
"Those are numbers I don't think any of us thought we'd ever see," Director of Public Safety Mark Taylor said Tuesday when he spoke to commissioners about the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Blair County is now among the state's fifth class counties with the highest amount of COVID-19, when it had been among the lowest, Taylor added.
The prison, after months of having no COVID-19 cases among inmates, has watched its numbers jump.
A week ago, the facility acknowledged 14 inmates testing positive for COVID-19. On Tuesday morning when Warden Abbie Tate ordered the lockdown, the facility reported 43 inmates testing positive and 15 testing negative, with results from 30 tests pending.
Starting today, PrimeCare Medical, the company that provides inmate medical care, will test the remaining inmates in the facility, currently housing about 275.
Those inmates who test positive are being segregated from others, with men being moved into the prison's gymnasium or designated housing areas.
Women who test positive are being segregated from other women within their housing unit. A solid wooden door separates them, according to Tate.
The county, in its news release, indicates that the prison has taken measures to stop or mitigate the spread of COVID-19. That includes additional cleaning and the halting of visitations by those from outside agencies and by family members.
"It's the correctional officers who are bringing the virus into the jail," a male inmate's fiancee told the Mirror on Tuesday. "They're going to work even when they're not supposed to."
When the prison board met in November, reports indicated that the facility was using fill-in officers for 16 correctional officers who were absent from work because of COVID-19 or potential COVID-19 exposure. The prison was the first county employment location to report in mid-October that an employee tested positive for COVID-19.
Tate declined further comment about staff COVID-19 cases for security reasons.
The inmate's fiancee also told the Mirror that the lockdown imposed Tuesday requires the inmates to stay inside their cells almost round the clock. They're allowed to leave their cells and go into their common area for no more than a half hour every day, she said.
Those who don't get in line first for the phone, she said, run the risk of not getting to make any calls because the half hour expires.
"That's the kind of thing that's going to cause fights," she said.
Another inmate, a Tyrone woman, has been suffering with COVID-19 symptoms for about 72 hours, her boyfriend reported to the Mirror on Tuesday.
She was having difficulty breathing and she was experiencing fatigue, hot and cold sweats and a loss of taste. He said he contacted the prison medical staff to tell them she needed help.
"She was supposed to be tested today, then told they don't have enough tests to give her one," the boyfriend said before the county issued the news release indicating that every inmate is going to be tested.
Tate also said Tuesday that inmates, during the lockdown, are able to remain in touch with family members, by phone and by mail, as they normally would. The company providing inmate telephone service, she said, is allocating each inmate 10 minutes of phone time per month at no charge.