RSW Jail staffer tests COVID-19 positive – was not in contact with inmates

A staff member at Rappahannock-Shenandoah-Warren County Regional Jail has tested positive for the COVID-19 Coronavirus. In a press release from the office of RSW Jail Superintendent Russ Gilkison issued at 1:43 p.m. Friday afternoon, April 24, it was noted that the person is “a support staff member, who does not have direct inmate contact and has not been in the building for over a week.”

The release continues to explain that the COVID-19 diagnosed staffer “began feeling ill over the weekend while at home, was tested earlier this week, and received the confirmation yesterday” on April 23rd.

A second RSW Jail support staffer said to be in close contact with the COVID-19 diagnosed employee, “has been directed to self-isolate at home for 14 days, at the direction of the Virginia Department of Health. This staff member is not displaying any symptoms at this time,” the release states.

Despite the first positive employee diagnosis, the release continues to observe, “Currently, there are no suspected or confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the facility. We are continuing to take steps to keep our staff and the inmates as safe as possible by screening everyone entering the facility, cleaning and sanitizing day and night, and utilizing PPE. We will continue to update everyone as the situation evolves.”

So far, it is believed the RSW COVID-19 contamination has been isolated between one, possibly two support staffers who do not come in direct contact with inmates. Royal Examiner File Photo/Roger Bianchini

With meat and poultry processing plants across the nation under increased scrutiny as COVID-19 contamination breeding grounds due to ongoing close worker proximity and working conditions, the release observes that “The Virginia Department of Health believes this staff member possibly contracted the virus from their spouse, who works at a poultry plant in Rockingham County. The staff member is in contact with the VDH and their primary care physician and is resting in self-isolation at home.”

Could poultry processing operations be at least a partial explanation for the “explosion” of COVID-19 cases we were told Rockingham County and Harrisonburg have been experiencing recently?

As reported in Royal Examiner’s April 23 story on the fifth weekly Warren County Joint Pandemic Emergency Management briefing, between April 13 and April 23, Rockingham County cases jumped from 49 to 163, with the City of Harrisonburg going from 87 to 346 over that period. The two municipalities have a combined 9 fatalities attributed to the COVID-19 virus, with 8 of those in Harrisonburg.

A check one-day later, shortly after 3 p.m. Friday, showed those numbers continuing to climb by 9, to 355 cases in Harrisonburg; and by 13, to 176 in Rockingham, with an additional Coronavirus Disease-2019 death reported in Harrisonburg. Also, between April 23rd and 24th, Warren County’s confirmed cases climbed from 30 to 36.

And so it goes at the end of the third month since the first COVID-19 case was reported in the U.S. on January 24, 2020. When we checked Friday afternoon, national statistics at the CDC had not been updated for Friday, but as of Thursday, April 23, the U.S. had 865,585 cases and 48,816 fatalities attributed to the COVID-19 Coronavirus.