By Robert Harding
The Citizen
AUBURN, N.Y. — A COVID-19 outbreak at Auburn Correctional Facility is affecting more than 120 corrections officers who have either tested positive for the virus or quarantined due to contact with a confirmed case.
The New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association, the union representing corrections officers at Auburn and the other 51 state prisons, confirmed Monday that there is an outbreak at that maximum-security prison. The total number of positive cases wasn’t provided, but the organization said there is one officer who is hospitalized and in an intensive care unit. The officer’s condition is improving, according to the union.
The state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, which oversees New York prisons, doesn’t release facility-level data on employee cases. But there has been an uptick in the total number of employee cases within the department. The number of staff cases rose by 241, from 1,720 to 1,961, over a nine-day period.
There are at least two active COVID-19 cases among the incarcerated population at the prison, according to DOCCS. One of the cases was first reported last week.
A DOCCS spokesperson said Monday that the agency “has and continues to alter longstanding policies at Auburn Correctional Facility, in accordance with ( Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and (state Department of Health) guidelines, and create new policies to protect the health and well-being of staff and incarcerated individuals while working to protect public health and public safety.”
One new policy is the implementation of an asymptomatic surveillance testing plan at Auburn Correctional Facility and other state prisons. The DOCCS official said that the plan calls for “a number of incarcerated individuals” to be tested every weekday. One goal of the testing plan is to avoid outbreaks at correctional facilities and within housing units.
The outbreak at Auburn Correctional Facility is the third involving a state prison in Cayuga County. There have been two outbreaks at Cayuga Correctional Facility, a medium-security prison in Moravia. The first had 44 cases in October. There have been at least 27 more cases in an ongoing outbreak among the incarcerated population at the prison.
NYSCOPBA President Michael Powers recently urged the state to suspend visitation and non-essential inmate movement due to the uptick in cases within correctional facilities. DOCCS suspended visitation at Elmira and Greene correctional facilities when cases spiked at the two prisons. But as COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations rise throughout the state, visitation hasn’t been suspended at other facilities.
DOCCS has said that visitation is suspended for any incarcerated individual who tests positive for COVID-19 or in quarantine due to contact with positive case. Any individuals that are being transferred from a county jail to state prison must test negative for the virus before entering a correctional facility.
There are other protocols in place, including a mask mandate for incarcerated individuals, staff and visitors.
Health experts have warned about COVID-19 outbreaks in prisons because they are congregate facilities. Throughout the pandemic, there have been outbreaks reported at prisons in other states.
As of Friday, there have been at least 3,944 confirmed COVID-19 cases within DOCCS — 1,961 employees, 1,848 incarcerated individuals and 135 parolees. The death toll stands at 28, a majority (18) of which are inmates.
___
(c)2020 The Citizen, Auburn, N.Y.