Outbreak continues at prison

CASPER —A COVID-19 outbreak continues to impact Wyoming’s state prison in Torrington. 
On July 5, the facility found 162 cases of the coronavirus among people incarcerated at the Wyoming Medium Correctional Institution. That’s a quarter of the prison’s population. Another 20 employees also tested positive when the entire prison was tested, according to Department of Corrections spokesperson Paul Martin. 
This week, testing found another 59 cases in the facility, eight of those among staff. That means that one in three people incarcerated at the medium-security prison have tested positive in a two-week span. 
The majority of cases have not been serious or even symptomatic, Martin said. 
Those who do have symptoms and need medication can be treated with molnupiravir, an antiviral pill similar to paxlovid. 
“It is given as soon as possible after diagnosis and within 5 days of symptom onset,” Martin said. 
No inmates have needed to be taken outside the facility for COVID treatment during this latest outbreak, Martin said Wednesday. 
The prison remains in the DOC’s “red” zone, meaning transmission is high. Positive inmates have been put into isolation; anyone inside the facility must wear a mask; recreation and in-person visitation are on pause; and all meals are being taken in living units instead of dining halls. 
Phone and video visits are still happening on a limited basis, though inmates are reportedly limited to one 30-minute phone call per day. 
The other four Wyoming state prisons, all less populous than WMCI, are still in the lowest transmission level, according to the DOC, and have not reported testing results in months. 
Staff at the central office in Cheyenne have recently returned to wearing masks at work. 
Martin said there was no testing done in Torrington for the past “couple” of months, but that the most recent round of COVID tests was likely spurred by an uptick in people reporting sickness. 
“It is important to remember that an individual can test positive for up to 90 days following exposure,” Martin said in an email earlier this week. “It is very possible that many/most of these (in Torrington) were exposed in the past 90 days.” 
The outbreak has also put a strain on Torrington’s staff, which already has 17 vacancies. 
Around 300 people work at the facility, roughly 200 of them in security. To make sure security posts stay fully staffed, Martin said, other employees have been working overtime. 
Testing could resume at other facilities if transmission levels in the surrounding communities — Lusk, Riverton, Newcastle and Rawlins — are on the rise. 
The DOC is assuming, based on research by the state department of health, that the omicron variant remains dominant in Wyoming. 
The Torrington facility reported the most COVID-19 spread during the first two years of the pandemic, though the virus arrived later in Wyoming prisons than it did in most other parts of the country. 
In May, a smaller outbreak was found at the Wyoming Women’s Center in Lusk, where around 46 cases were found during a month-long lockdown. 
To date, nine people have reportedly died in Wyoming prisons due to COVID-19. The most recent death was reported in March.
 
This story was published on July 16, 2022.