BUFFALO, N.Y. — Just as COVID-19 has affected many businesses and agencies, 2 On Your Side is learning more about its impact on the staff and inmates supervised by the Erie County Sheriff's Office and the staffers of the County Board of Elections.
For the Erie County Sheriff's Office, COVID-19 presented quite a challenge in supervision of inmates. But they say their track record of containment has been fairly successful so far. They even got a nod of approval for following state and federal health requirements in a mid-November inspection from the oversight state Commission of Corrections.
But there was a recent cluster of cases at the Erie County Correctional Facility in Alden. Sheriff's Office Spokesman Scott Zylka told us, "In late November we announced 27 inmates and they were basically in one housing area and that helped with the containment."
Zylka says nine of those cases recovered with 16 remaining inmate cases being treated in a special isolated medical unit.
Overall the Erie County Sheriff's Office reports that as of December 9, there were 52 positive inmate COVID cases since March. That is roughly seven to 10 percent of the general population on a general average. There are an additional 48 cases pending results. And over 600 tests have been administered overall for potential exposure or medical procedures.
There have been no deaths among inmates or staff, perhaps aided by limits on family visits and vendors and strict protocols for all.
"With other inmates in open areas they have to wear a mask," Zylka said. "And we're going around just like stores or restaurants or any other type of business, we're going around reminding people they have to wear their mask. And we've actually had some discipline issues in regards to personnel who haven't been wearing their masks."
Also with potential inmate transfers to state facilities or elsewhere, they must constantly monitor inmate medical records and Zylka points out there's another element.
"In regards to how we're moving, transporting inmates or moving them within the facility - that is completely changed," Zylka said. "We have to keep social distancing."
As for staff, 69 employees have tested positive and another 17 cases are pending. That is out of just over 1,000 sheriff's office employees.
We asked if that presented problems for inmate supervision and were told by Zylka that there were some arrangements for corrections officers.
"There's been some overtime because of individuals who called in sick or they had to go for testing," Zylka said. "Whatever reason they couldn't come in - we certainly adjust shifts and adjust platoons."
Of course the other major concern for the sheriff's office was the impact of COVID on road patrol deputies. They say they only had a couple of cases, but they had to have special plans in place for that as well.
"We created extra platoons," Zylka said. "So people were staying away from the substations. It gave us time to disinfect the vehicles. It gave them enough time where they were off for seven days or worked at a different location for seven days. So we reduced the interaction among road deputies."
We also checked on the Erie County Board of Elections which of course handled all the vote gathering and tabulation. A spokesman tells us 15 staffers tested positive during the pandemic so far. He also said there was constant testing during the election period and efforts to make sure anyone feeling ill stayed home.
And he says there was no exposure to the public at the Election Board's Eagle Street headquarters, which was used as an early voting polling place in downtown Buffalo.
