Waterbury, Vt., July 30, 2020 – Six inmates have tested positive for COVID-19 upon returning to Vermont from Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility in Tutwiler, Miss. The six inmates arrived at Marble Valley Regional Correctional Facility in Rutland by van transport on Tuesday, July 28.
All were immediately placed in medical quarantine and tested for coronavirus, per Department of Corrections protocol. The inmates are currently in medical isolation, contact tracing is underway, and the department has instructed TCCF to test the Vermont inmates still housed in Mississippi.
“What we know is our efforts have effectively eliminated the presence of COVID inside Vermont facilities, and if the virus enters it will be from outside our walls,” said Interim Commissioner Jim Baker. “What we hope is that the Vermont model of mitigation works in this situation. Fortunately we were already prepared for it; Marble Valley stopped intakes and transfers on July 2 in anticipation that we’d need space to house an influx of positive cases, either from the community or out of state.”
A Vermont inmate still housed in Mississippi tested positive for coronavirus earlier this week. They were housed in the same unit as three of the returned inmates.
Daily updates on the COVID-19 response in Vermont’s correctional facilities can be found at https://doc.vermont.gov/covid-19-information-page.
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