Staff member at women’s prison tests positive for new coronavirus

A staff member at a women’s prison in the Las Vegas Valley has tested positive for the new coronavirus, according to state data.

As of Wednesday morning, the Florence McClure Women’s Correctional Center, located at 4370 Smiley Road in the northeast Las Vegas Valley, had one staff member who had tested positive for the virus, according to data posted to nvhealthresponse.nv.gov.

Due to changes in the online data, the total number of cases amid all Nevada Department of Corrections’ staff has not increased from the six cases the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported on Monday. There had been no reports of inmates who had tested positive as of Wednesday morning.

On Monday, the data showed there were two staff members at the Southern Desert Correctional Center who had tested positive. That number decreased to just one staff member on Tuesday, and by Wednesday morning the case at the women’s prison appeared in the data.

On Saturday, Department of Corrections’ spokesman Scott Kelley told the Review-Journal that five employees had tested positive — two more than had previously been reported. But information from Kelley also differs from the online data.

Kelley said in a text message on Saturday that the positive cases consisted of one employee at Ely State Prison, one employee at the Casa Grande Transitional Housing facility and three who worked at High Desert State Prison.

He said in an email on Wednesday that the newest case was at the Southern Desert Correctional Center, which is located near the High Desert facility about 40 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Kelley said that he did not know why the data changed from Monday to Wednesday to show the case at the women’s prison.

According to a statement on the state’s website, the online information “changes rapidly as labs conduct tests and discover new cases. The numbers may not always match the most recent reports released by local health jurisdictions since statewide cases will be updated as lab data are available.”

The online data show that there are about 222 employees at the women’s prison. According to the Department of Corrections’ website, the prison has a capacity of 950 inmates.

Attorneys and prisoner advocacy organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, have pushed for the release of certain offenders from state facilities to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

On Monday, the Nevada Sentencing Commission recommended that the state’s Board of Pardons Commissioners — composed of seven Nevada Supreme Court justices, Gov. Steve Sisolak and Attorney General Aaron Ford — decide the criminal justice system’s steps in response to the outbreak.

Contact Katelyn Newberg at knewberg@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0240. Follow @k_newberg on Twitter.