STAUNTON - An inmate is recovering and working his way back into the general population at Middle River Regional Jail after testing positive for COVID-19 about two weeks ago, according to Superintendent Jeffery Newton.
The inmate showed no signs of being infected and was asymptomatic.
"He had no symptoms," Newton said.
The superintendent said staff at the jail initially refused the inmate's entry into the facility for a medical issue not related to COVID-19. Newton said the inmate was taken to Augusta Health where he was tested. After he returned to the jail, days later the positive result came back from the hospital.
"We learned of the positive test four days later but we had, being overly cautious, isolated him for the unrelated medical issue," Newton said. "So he was already isolated at the time we got the positive test result."
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Since March, Newton said two other inmates have also tested positive for COVID-19, one who tested positive after he left the facility and the other, a female inmate, who tested positive after being taken out of the jail when an emergency custody order was issued for her transfer to a mental health treatment facility.
Newton said the female inmate had a previous positive test and a subsequent negative test before being admitted to Middle River Regional Jail. He said the conflicting test results were enough to keep her separated from other inmates.
"She was isolated the whole time she was here," the superintendent said.
As pandemic fears spread across the globe in March, local prosecutors, judges and the Staunton Public Defender's Office conferred with Newton in an effort to reduce the jail's inmate population to better handle a possible COVID-19 outbreak inside the facility.
Prior to the pandemic, the jail's inmate population was over 900. On Thursday, Newton said the facility had about 760 inmates after dipping to a previous low of 680.
"Now we're seeing our population start to grow again," he said.
Newton said as more inmates populate the jail, the harder it will be to control an outbreak if one were to occur.
Middle River Regional Jail was originally built to house 396 inmates, but with double bunking and sometimes triple bunking the jail can hold almost three times that amount.
"At 760, we're double bunking and close to triple bunking. Seven-hundred and sixty is a whole lot better than 910, but it's still a whole lot more than 396," he said.
Since the effort began in March to try and keep COVID-19 out of the jail, Newton said so far it has been a success.
"I think we've been fortunate," he said. "I think our challenge is the diversity of the folks that come into our custody ... as well as the diversity of our workforce."
He also noted inmate input is an important part of the process. "We're depending on offenders to be honest with us about what their experiences have been in the community and who they've come in contact with," Newton said.
The jail's screening measures are continuing, and staff have remained diligent, he said.
"The fact that the virus may come in at some point and time doesn't mean we've had a failure somewhere," Newton said. "Despite our best efforts we may have an outbreak, and then we'll respond to that as we need to."
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The superintendent said work release programs at the jail have started up again after being suspended earlier in the pandemic. However, work release inmates are on house arrest and not in the facility.
"They've got to live at home, because I'm not willing to accept the risk of having those folks going out to an employer where I don't control the environment they work in," Newton said.
Other inmate programs have also restarted, as have visitations.
Nancy Insco, founder and CEO of The Institute for Reform & Solutions, a local agency that addresses dysfunctions of the criminal justice system, said she's sure that the rise in the inmate population is making the administration at Middle River Regional Jail uncomfortable.
"And I know it's making inmates uncomfortable, I talk to inmates a lot," she said. "The inmates are very nervous, of course."
Insco is a former prison warden at facilities that served both men and women.
She said she feels Newton and his administration have been working hard to protect staff and inmates.
"It's good fortune," Insco said of the jail, which has avoided a full-blown outbreak. "The scary thing about this, obviously, is we don't know what we don't know."
According to the CDC, as of Wednesday there have been 4.8 million cases of COVID-19 in the United States. More than 150,000 people have died.
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Have questions or a tip? Email Brad Zinn at bzinn@newsleader.com. You can also follow him on Twitter.
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