A sign marks the entrance to Ely State Prison, the location of Nevada's execution chamber, as seen July 11, 2018. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)
Nevada prison officials say they still are battling the effects of COVID-19 on inmates and staff but getting an increasing number of both vaccinated.
Prison officials told the Nevada Board of Prison Commissioners on Monday that currently 83.5 percent of staff and 6,591 of the 10,000 inmates are now vaccinated.
But Deputy Director Bill Gittere told the board consisting of the governor, secretary of state and attorney general that Omicron variant has hit the department hard. In the 10 days after January 6, staff positives increased 540 percent and inmate positives by 2,000 percent.
In addition, Director Charles Daniels said in the 23 months since the outbreak, the department’s staff vacancy rate has went from 12 percent to 23 percent with more officers and other staff departing every month. The issue, he said, is that those corrections officers can get significant pay increases by moving to local jail and corrections agencies.
There are 425 custody vacancies in the department.
Staff members are tested for COVID-19 weekly and those with a positive or symptoms have to isolate for 10 days.
Deputy Director Bill Quenga said the Hepatitis C treatment program is also proceeding. Lawmakers appropriated $15.8 million to those treatments after a court decision mandated treating all inmates with the disease. More than 600 inmates are now being treated and 580 have completed treatment. The program will continue for several more years to get every infected inmate treated.
Several corrections officers and their family members testified that staff shortages are forcing officers to work huge amounts of overtime including 16-hour shifts that are causing not only family but mental health problems and just plain burnout.
They said the problem is simple — the department must raise pay and benefits to keep their staff.
The board took no action on Monday. All agenda items were reports presented for discussion.
