HOLLIDAYSBURG — The Blair County Prison is beginning to recover from its latest wave of COVID-19 infections.

As of Wednesday, the prison removed quarantines on select male housing areas and opened its doors to allow behind-glass visitations with most inmates.

“We’re getting back to semi-normal,” Warden Abbie Tate told the county prison board on Thursday.

The exception, she said, is the women’s housing area, which remains under quarantine because of COVID-19 cases.

The prison, on Dec. 1, halted inmate visitations and quarantined select housing blocks as COVID-19 cases began increasing. The facility also arranged to have food delivered after temporarily closing its kitchen due to COVID-19 concerns. A similar arrangement was initiated in 2020 when the facility experienced its first outbreak in COVID-19 cases.

That first outbreak spread quickly through the facility, while a second increase in COVID cases was slower, Tate said.

The latest wave has been slower too, she said, with inmates testing positive as long as 14 days after a known exposure.

The county prison continues to provide COVID-19 vaccination clinics, and according to Deputy Warden James Eckard, the most recent one vaccinated 66 inmates and staffers.

“That’s been our biggest one so far,” Eckard reported.

Attempts to restrict the exposure and spread of COVID-19 are ongoing, Tate said. Ten female inmates were recently moved into the prison’s gymnasium to isolate them from others in the quarantined housing block. Inmate programs operated by volunteers remain on hold at least through Jan. 3.

In other business, prison board Chairman A.C. Stickel praised the prison staff and a long list of others who recognized the recent shooting death of corrections officer Rhonda Russell who was killed on the job while escorting an inmate.

“We definitely had an outpouring of support from our community,” Stickel said.

The state Department of Corrections, in addition to Cambria and Bedford counties, staffed the county prison on the day of Russell’s funeral so the prison employees could attend.

Prison board member Bruce Erb also praised PrimeCare Medical, the facility’s medical care provider, because it called in additional staff to counsel employees and inmates.

The shooting death remains under investigation, Stickel said, with future reports anticipated from the state police and the district attorney’s office that could lead to revised policies and procedures.

Some changes were already made to inmate transport procedures, Tate said.

Mirror Staff Writer Kay Stephens is at 814-946-7456.