43 more inmates at Henrico jail test positive for COVID-19 in 'isolated outbreak'

Forty-three more inmates tested positive this week for COVID-19 at Henrico County’s Jail West at the county’s government complex on Parham Road.

The facility’s mass testing effort on Tuesday and Wednesday comes after three recently incarcerated inmates tested positive on July 6, the Henrico County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release Friday.

Results are pending on more than 100 other staff and contractors. Twenty-six inmates and 18 jail staff tested negative. Eight inmates refused testing.

Henrico Sheriff Alisa Gregory said in a phone interview Friday that all of the inmates tested had been incarcerated in the two weeks prior to July 7.

Newly incarcerated individuals are initially housed with other new inmates, whose assigned cells share a day room, Gregory said. The three inmates who tested positive on July 6 had shared a day room with the 79 inmates who were tested on Tuesday and Wednesday.

She characterized the situation as an “isolated outbreak.”

“Right now, the process that we have in place was meant to catch it this way,” she said.

Of the 43 inmates who tested positive, nine are experiencing mild symptoms, such as a low grade fever and malaise, while 34 remain asymptomatic.

COVID-19 positive inmates will be quarantined in single-room cells. The facility is currently working on a schedule for that area to allow isolated individuals to shower or speak on the phone, Gregory said.

When incarcerated, the facility provides individuals with two cloth masks, which are regularly washed alongside uniforms.

The Sheriff’s Office intends to test all 594 individuals incarcerated at Henrico’s Jail West and the 537 at Jail East. The Sheriff’s Office is also offering free COVID-19 tests to individuals released on or after June 20 who may have been exposed to the virus while incarcerated.