Coronavirus outbreak at Butner prison continues to surge. Now it’s spreading to staff.

The coronavirus outbreak at the Federal Correctional Complex at Butner took another turn on Thursday when the Federal Bureau of Prisons reported that the number of staffers who have tested positive jumped from one to 17.

That number may be even higher. An internal email obtained by The News & Observer shows the warden reporting that 21 staffers have tested positive; two have recovered and returned to work.

The email from Complex Warden Tommy Scarantino said 17 staffers tested positive at the medium-security facility known as FCI I; two from the low-security facility known as LSC I; and one each from the medical center and the other medium-security facility known as FCI II.

“I apologize for not being able to tell you who the staff are,” Scarantino said in the email on Thursday. “I know a lot of you would like to reach out and check on them and be there for them.”

The email was provided to the N&O by an employee who asked not to be identified for fear it could affect the employee’s employment.

The warden’s email said 61 inmates have tested positive with all but one in the medium-security FCI I. The other is in the medical center. That would put the total number of cases at 82; the bureau reported 76 cases on its website Friday.

Butner, located in Granville County, has the most cases in the country, according to the bureau’s website. Across the federal prison system, 318 inmates and 163 staff have tested positive while 15 inmates and eight staff have recovered, according to the bureau’s website.

“Although this number at the FCI 1 is high, 40-plus of these inmates were identified several weeks ago,” Scarantino said. “When the first inmate at the FCI 1 was identified, FCI 1 staff immediately screened all of the inmates on the lower compound.”

That screening identified the more than 40 inmates, he wrote, and they were “immediately” moved into a quarantine/isolation unit at the facility, or moved to what he described as the “old” isolation unit in a special housing unit within the low-security prison.

Moving inmates who have tested positive from one facility to another has troubled staff, said the employee.

Scarantino said in the email that one inmate has recovered from the virus and has been released from isolation, and several others are close to recovering. But he said other inmates are at “the outside hospital,” and “already had other serious non-COVID related medical issues.”

“(T)his is why the virus has affected them more severely,” he said.

Precautions taken for new inmates

Sue Allison, a Federal Bureau of Prisons spokesperson, said she could not comment about the extent of the outbreak beyond what it reported on the bureau’s website. The bureau has said there are no deaths at Butner, which houses roughly 4,700 inmates in its four facilities.

Scarantino said in the email that inmates continue to come into Butner, though at a greatly reduced rate, because some courts are continuing to hand down sentences.

“Our leadership is doing everything they can to put a halt to this incoming movement,” Scarantino said.

He said on Monday, all staffers were issued two surgical masks while inmates received one. The masks, he said, were good for five days.

“We WILL make sure you have a surgical mask at all times, and the appropriate N-95 mask anytime an N-95 mask is required,” he said.

Those N-95 masks are supposed to be tightly fitting and more protective. He said the prison has other protective supplies such as gowns and gloves, as needed. The UNICOR Federal Prison Industries factory near the prison has switched production and is making the cloth masks for inmates, he said.

Union criticizes response

Union officials with the American Federation of Government Employees Local 408 representing prison employees at Butner could not be reached Thursday by phone or email.

But Jose Rojas, the southeast regional vice president for the union, criticized how the bureau and management at federal prisons have handled the outbreak. Rojas is based at the correctional complex in Coleman, Fla. Butner is not in his region.

He said the bureau was “caught flatfooted” as the virus began hitting the United States, and has not been upfront with the public about the outbreak’s spread. He said officials at some prisons have tried to suppress case numbers by requiring staff to produce notes from a doctor if they say they’ve been diagnosed with the virus, or by moving sick inmates into quarantines without testing them.

“They don’t want the numbers to be high,” Rojas said.

He said the bureau is now moving correctional officers from prisons with few or no cases to those that have bigger outbreaks, which creates the risk they will return with the virus and spread it.

“They are mandating staff from one institution to go to another institution,” he said. “So they are technically not following the social traveling ban.”

Butner officials have not responded to The News & Observer’s requests for interviews since the first coronavirus case was reported at the complex. An executive assistant to the warden on Tuesday directed all coronavirus questions to the bureau’s public information office in Washington.

But the office’s staff do not know always know details of Butner cases and need to contact the facility to find out.

Two days ago, The N&O asked Allison, the bureau spokesperson, whether any inmates were hospitalized with the virus. In an interview Thursday with The N&O, before news about the spike in staff cases became public, Allison said she did not know whether that was the case.