Lexington frustrated by lack of cooperation after COVID-19 cases climb to 53 at federal prison
The novel coronavirus continues to spread at the Federal Medical Center, a federal prison on Leestown Road in Lexington, infecting 53 inmates and one employee as of Tuesday afternoon, according to Lexington-Fayette County Health Department.
The health department last Friday confirmed that 33 inmates at the federal prison had tested positive for the virus. The department said it would provide routine case investigation and contract tracing for Fayette County residents who test positive and work at the prison.
Lexington city officials said Tuesday they have received little to no communication or cooperation from officials at the Federal Medical Center.
Tyler Scott, Mayor Linda Gorton’s chief of staff, told the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council during a Tuesday work session that they have received little information about what the federal prison is doing to stop the spread of the disease in the prison population. Scott said they have even tried to reach out to federal elected officials for help.
To date, city and health department officials have received minimal information, he said.
“We are not getting any information on how they are protecting employees,” Scott said. The city and health department is now turning to social media to get the word to prison employees there to seek testing.
“These employees are from Fayette, Bourbon and our surrounding counties,” Scott said. “We have to respond as quickly as we can and the cooperation is not there.”
The Federal Medical Center holds 1,248 inmates inside a complex of five buildings, with 208 more inmates housed at an adjoining minimum-security camp, according to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons. About 480 prison employees have contact with the inmates.
Like Kentucky’s state prisons, where a COVID-19 outbreak has led to the deaths of at least three inmates at a prison in Western Kentucky, the federal prison system has suspended visits and volunteer programs during the pandemic to reduce the chances of the virus entering from outside communities. However, prison staff continue to come and go with every shift.
Additionally, the Bureau of Prisons confirmed Tuesday that one employee of the federal prison in McCreary County in southern Kentucky has tested positive for the coronavirus. No inmate at that prison has been identified as testing positive.
Nationally, at least 2,066 federal prison inmates and 359 federal prison employees had been infected with the coronavirus as of Tuesday, according to the Bureau of Prisons. Forty-one inmates infected with COVID-19 have died.
The Bureau of Prisons is not testing all of its 141,066 inmates for the virus, but it announced April 24 that it will use rapid test kits to check symptomatic people at select prisons that are particularly hard hit.
This story was originally published May 5, 2020 at 12:42 PM.
