By Catherine Candisky
The Columbus Dispatch
BELMONT COUNTY, Ohio — Belmont Correctional Institution is emerging as the state’s latest prison hot spot for the coronavirus as COVID-19 cases soar and conditions at the minimum-to-medium security facility in eastern Ohio deteriorate.
But the public may never know it because the state has stopped the mass testing that showed prisons in Marion and Pickaway counties were the top COVID-19 hot spots in the nation.
Since Belmont’s first positive case of an inmate on April 13, 132 inmates and 66 staffers have tested positive, up from 30 inmates and one staff member just two weeks ago. And on Tuesday, Belmont reported its first COVID-19 fatality with the death of inmate Ronald Wanyerka, 62, of Cuyahoga County.
Statewide, 58 inmates and two prison employees have died.
Those on the front lines say the virus almost certainly is more widespread than reported because the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction is no longer conducting widespread testing in prisons. Instead, the state is primarily testing inmates exhibiting symptoms of the disease.
Corrections officers at Belmont complain that they aren’t given adequate personal protection equipment, no longer have space to keep sick inmates apart from healthy ones, and are forced to go to a drive-through facility in nearby West Virginia to be tested themselves.
Scott Stevens, who has worked as a corrections officer at Belmont in St. Clairsville for 24 years and is chapter representative for the Ohio Civil Services Employees Association, the union representing 8,000 prison employees statewide, said Belmont consists of 10 dorm-style facilities, each housing more than 200 inmates who sleep in bunk beds and share kitchen and bathroom facilities.
Once five inmates in a facility test positive, the whole dorm is considered to have the coronavirus. But unless someone needs medical treatment, they remain in the dorm to recuperate, he said, adding that from one to five inmates are being sent to the hospital each day because their conditions have worsened.
Guards supervising COVID-19 inmates, Stevens said, are not provided N95 masks to protect them from infection. Instead, they get lower-grade cloth or surgical masks.
“Once inmates get to the hospital, to go into the rooms you have to have an N95 mask, goggles and gowns on, so we’re not sure what the difference is,” he said. “Why do you have to have so much more protection on at the hospital and not when taking care of them here?”
Brittany Whiting, whose fiance is serving a two-year sentence at Belmont for drug trafficking, said that eventually everyone at the prison will become infected.
“They’ve run out of room to quarantine, and when inmates get sick, they remain in their dorm, sick mixed with healthy, healthy mixed with sick,” said the Springfield woman.
“There’s really no way for the healthy people to avoid the sick people.”
The coronavirus has spread quickly through Ohio prisons with Marion and Pickaway correctional institutions becoming national hot spots after mass testing at the two institutions revealed that 80% of inmates had contracted the disease.
Statewide, as of Friday, more than 4,400 prisoners and 566 corrections officers and staff members have tested positive for COVID-19, according to the state prisons agency. Ohio’s prison population is about 49,000.
Department spokeswoman JoEllen Smith defended the new testing policy, which includes “testing at intake, for clinical indications, at release, and for all staff.”
“This approach will allow DRC to better protect staff, the inmate population, and the community at large. ... Testing only detects the presence of the virus at a point in time and does not detect the amount of virus in the body. A person could test negative one day and test positive the next,” she said.
In addition, Smith said, policies have been implemented at all prisons to slow the spread of the virus including: testing incoming inmates, limiting meals to two a day, banning visitors, suspending off-site work assignments, allowing use of hand sanitizer and masks, and head-to-toe sleeping to maximize distance between inmates.
As at other institutions with high numbers of staff members out sick, Smith said, Belmont is receiving assistance from the Ohio National Guard and State Highway Patrol for medical and perimeter security.
Chris Mabe, president of the OCSEA, said he disagrees with the department’s decision to limit testing and suggested that the state was masking the scope of the problem.
“Why stop mass testing? We’re dealing with people’s lives,” Mabe said. “It’s like everybody has buried their head in the sand and said we’ll hope for the best. I can’t believe the reasoning to say we’ll test people who we believe are symptomatic when the new science coming out says not everyone is symptomatic.”
Mabe’s wife, Brenda, a corrections officer at Lorain Correctional Institution west of Cleveland, is recovering after testing positive for COVID-19. Mabe was presumed to have it after showing symptoms but also is on the mend.
“If they did mass testing at Belmont, it would look like Marion or Pickaway,” Whiting said, noting Gov. Mike DeWine’s earlier pledge to test all inmates. “Let’s be honest: That’s why they’re not.”
Stevens disputed state claims about availability of staff testing, saying it’s only offered if an employee is showing symptoms of the virus.
“If our officers don’t have symptoms and want to be tested, if they’re concerned they’ve been exposed, they go to West Virginia where you can get tested without symptoms,” Stevens said.
Last week, Senate Minority Leader Kenny Yuko, D-Richmond Heights, called for mass testing at Ohio prisons and nursing homes.
“Ignoring the virus won’t make it go away, but it will place Ohioans at risk,” he said. “Without mass testing, essential workers, prisoners, and nursing home residents alike have to assume they’re infected. They have to worry about infecting their loved ones. Workers have to endure the constant stress of being a potential carrier, simply for doing their job.’
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©2020 The Columbus Dispatch (Columbus, Ohio)