By Beth Musgrave
Lexington Herald-Leader
LEXINGTON, Ky. — A Lexington federal prison with more than 90 positive coronavirus cases has agreed to test more than 400 employees there after federal and local elected officials pressured the facility to release more information about its COVID-19 outbreak.
After more than a week of providing little cooperation or information, officials at the Federal Medical Center on Leestown Road said they will test all employees at the prison. So far, only inmates showing symptoms of the disease have been tested, leaving employees to seek testing on their own.
“They are going to start testing all employees,” Mayor Linda Gorton said during a Thursday Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council meeting.
Details about how that testing will be conducted are still being worked out, Fayette County health officials said Friday.
“There are preliminary discussions for the employees to be tested,” said Kevin Hall, a spokesman for the Lexington-Fayette County Health Department. “There are no details about the potential testing at this time.”
As of Friday, 90 inmates have tested positive for COVID-19, an increase of 22 from Thursday. In addition, one staff member from Fayette County has tested positive, Fayette County health officials have confirmed. According to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons web site, in total five staff members have tested positive at the facility. Fayette County’s health department only receives positive test results for people who live in Fayette County.
Lexington-Fayette County Health Department officials were first alerted to the outbreak on May 1, when the federal prison reported 33 coronavirus cases.
The U.S. Bureau of Prisons, which oversees the Federal Medical Center, released a statement Thursday saying only limited testing had been conducted at the federal prison. Testing was limited to inmates who showed symptoms.
That statement came after Kentucky’s Republican U.S. senators, Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul, said on Twitter that their offices were contacting federal officials about the situation.
Earlier this week, Gorton and Lexington-Fayette County Health Department officials expressed frustration that the federal prison had not cooperated with public health officials. Officials at the prison had only released limited information about how the outbreak at the Federal Medical Center was being contained, Gorton’s staff said on Tuesday.
The COVID-19 outbreak at the Federal Medical Center is the largest in Fayette County to date. That outbreak has resulted in a dramatic spike in the number of new novel coronavirus infections in Kentucky’s second largest county. Prior to the outbreak, the number of new infections in Fayette County had dwindled to a handful or fewer each day.
In the statement Thursday, the Bureau of Prisons said inmates who test positive are isolated and provided with medical care as appropriate. The bureau said it is also deploying additional resources to some facilities to conduct mass testing of inmates.
Previously, prison employees who showed coronavirus symptoms or who had been exposed to a person with COVID-19 were given a formal letter to provide their local health department requesting priority testing.
The Fayette County health department was using Twitter and other social media to reach out to employees at the facility to encourage them to get tested.
The Federal Medical Center holds 1,248 inmates in five buildings, with 208 more inmates housed at an adjoining minimum-security camp. About 480 prison employees have contact with inmates.
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