Fayette jail employee positive for COVID-19. City says no need to quarantine inmates, staff.
An employee of the Fayette County Detention Center has tested positive for the novel coronavirus, but city officials said Monday there is no need to quarantine staff or inmates.
Susan Straub, a spokeswoman for the city of Lexington, said the employee was feeling ill and was recently tested. The city was notified of the positive COVID-19 test on Monday.
Straub said the employee is from a neighboring county. That county’s health department did an investigation and determined that staff and inmates were not at risk.
“No one at the detention center was determined to be at medium or high risk of exposure,” Straub said.
Michael Harris, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Town Branch Lodge 83, which represents jail employees, said employees work in a closed environment. He does not understand how other employees who worked with the person are low-risk.
It’s hard to social distance in some areas of that detention center because of the constraints of the building itself.
“I know they are taking steps and I applaud that.” Harris said of the city.
Harris said to his knowledge no other jail employees who worked with the person who has the respiratory illness has been tested. Harris said he has concerns with the lack of testing. If the virus spreads to other correction officers, there will be problems with staffing the facility, he said.
“If this were to spread like wild fire, we are going to have a big issue,” Harris said.
This is the first positive test of a jail employee in Fayette County. It is not known what area of the jail the employee worked in. Fayette County has tried to limit its jail population by transferring inmates to state prisons and releasing 48 non-violent misdemeanor offenders with less than 45 days on their sentence. Last week, the facility had 1,102 inmates.
Last week, Lexington Fire Chief Kristin Chilton said a firefighter had also tested positive for the virus. The fire department does not believe the firefighter contracted the virus on the job. In that case, the city also quarantined eight firefighters who worked with the firefighter who tested positive for the respiratory disease.
Chilton said a press conference Monday the firefighter was doing well in self-isolation.
