Report: COVID-19 outbreak at Lexington Correctional Center

Ninety-six people in connection with the Lexington Correctional Center have tested positive for COVID19, the Oklahoma Department of Corrections reported Wednesday.

Two inmates from the same unit at the correctional center went to the hospital on July 13 and 15, and both tested positive for COVID-19. After receiving the inmates' test results, the correctional center tested 180 other inmates from t hat same unit, along with several staff members. The test results for 87 additional inmates and seven staff members came back positive. All of the non-hospitalized inmates are asymptomatic.

“As soon as we found out that we had those positives, we quarantined the unit that they came from, and then they all got tested,” said Justin Wolf, the director of communications f or Oklahoma Corrections.

“That has been our consistent response ,” he said. “Any ti me we have a positive, we figure out who was potentially exposed to that positive inmate and then test that entire unit or group. That group stays isolated from the rest of the facility.”

Lexington Correctional Center along with Lexington Assessment& Reception Center comprise the complex of prisons in Lexington, and the facilities are essentially adjoining. Transfer inmates funneling into state facilities from county j ails are being sent to the Assessment& Reception Center. Wolf said Oklahoma Corrections is working with the Department of Health to test inmates at the LARC and conduct a contact tracing investigation in response to the LCC outbreak.

Damion Shade, a criminal justice policy analyst with OK Policy, said outbreaks are likely as Oklahoma begins the process of resuming criminal justice activities like normal.

“As this transfer process begins and continues, it seems very likely to me that we will experience what lots of other states have experienced,” Shade said, referring to the large-scale outbreaks at prison facilities across the nation.

He said he “heard reports” of a possible outbreak at Lexington.

“The first people coming into DOC from the county jails are bottlenecking at Lexington ,” Shade said. In the long- term, especially if court trials resume in August, Shade said it's “an unsustainable situation.”

Lexington Correctional Center currently houses 858 inmates, and the inmates who have tested positive or been exposed are being isolated from everyone else. Staff members are being screened daily and are being offered the option to get tested. All staff members wear masks and hand sanitizer stations are available for staff members throughout the facility. Wolf said he doesn't know if the same is available for the inmates.