Second W.Va. Corrections Officer Tests Positive For Coronavirus

A second employee working for the West Virginia Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation has tested positive for the coronavirus, this time in Randolph County. 

The individual is a part-time officer at the Huttonsville Correctional Facility, according to a statement Monday afternoon from the Department of Military Affairs and Public Safety, which oversees the Division of Corrections. 

DMAPS said the officer was tested on Friday, May 15, after working less than four hours on Thursday. The results came back over the weekend. 

The officer likely had “minimal contact” with those incarcerated at Huttonsville and other employees, DMAPS said. During his last shift, he supervised three people in the facility’s recreation yard, “from a distance and while wearing a mask his entire shift.”

Those three incarcerated people, and the rest of the people in their 44-bed dormitory, are all in quarantine, according to DMAPS. 

The first positive case DMAPS reported was an officer in South Central Regional Jail in Charleston on April 24. The department said that officer has recovered and is back at work.

A correctional officer at a federally-run center in McDowell County recently tested positive, according to news from the U.S. Bureau of Prisons on Friday. At least five prisoners at the Federal Correctional Institution in Gilmer County also have tested positive, after the federal agency  transferred 124 people from outside West Virginia to state facilities on April 28.

Emily Allen is a Report for America corps member.