Update: COVID-19 Outbreak at 2 WDOC Facilities in Torrington and Riverton

Last week, the Wyoming Department of Corrections (WDOC) weekly COVID-19 reports showed that there was an outbreak of the virus at the Wyoming Medium Correctional Institution in Torrington (WMCI), with 116 cases.

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On Thursday however, WDOC released new numbers for COVID-19 cases at their facilities, and not only have the number of cases at the Torrington facility increased to 118, but there is also an outbreak at the Wyoming Honor Farm in Riverton (WHF), which increased from 17 cases during the week of Oct. 11 to 81 cases during the week of Oct. 18.

At WMCI, there are 103 cases among inmates, down from 109 the week before, and 15 cases among staff, up from seven the week before.

At WHF, all of the cases are among inmates, with the release by WDOC stating that the cases among staff were "not reported."

Paul Martin, deputy administrator of the transparency division for the WDOC, said they are waiting on the staff tests results for the WHF, as they are having delivery issues.

Each week, WDOC facilities test a random 20% of inmates and staff at their facilities, and if any positives appear, they test the entire population.

In the release, Martin said that the roughly 58% vaccination rate among inmates contributed to the low rate of serious symptoms, 9%, and 40% that were experiencing minor symptoms, with the remaining 51% being asymptomatic.

Martin said over 50% of those that tested positive were fully vaccinated.

In spite of the outbreak, Martin said he believes part of the reason that they have a large number of cases is due to the fact that they test everyone in their facilities, while people in the general public usually only get tested when they are experiencing symptoms.

Goshen County, where WMCI is located, recently saw the most COVID-19 cases it's had since the start of the pandemic, reporting 76 cases on Oct. 14 and 74 cases on Oct. 11.

Fremont County, where WHF is located, also recently saw a spike in COVID-19 cases, with 132 cases reported on Oct. 18, the second most cases since Nov. 17 with 134.