A new coronavirus outbreak has sickened 74 inmates and 13 staff members at the Fremont Correctional Facility in Cañon City, the Colorado Department of Corrections confirmed Tuesday.

The prison in Fremont County launched a round of testing for inmates and workers after learning that a single inmate tested positive Oct. 6, said state prisons spokeswoman Annie Skinner. The employees who contracted the disease weren’t all correctional officers, she said, without providing a breakdown. 

“We do have the ability to bring in additional staff to support the facility if that becomes necessary,” Skinner said.

The announcement comes amid a statewide rise in COVID-19 infections, with more than 1,000 new daily cases since Saturday, the highest since March. The resurgence came as Colorado passed a grim benchmark in recording more than 2,000 deaths from the illness. 

Skinner’s written statement suggested that infection numbers could rise as testing continues.

“Test results are coming in regularly so the numbers will be updated as the results come in,” the statement said, adding that tests will continue “for several weeks.”

Before the outbreak, the prison tested employees biweekly, Skinner said. Prisoners were also routinely tested as they arrived at the prison or were released, which is how the prisoner’s positive result was found earlier this month.

The prison has launched a series of precautionary steps to control the virus’s spread, including by requiring inmates in quarantined and isolated areas to remain in their cells, except when showering. All meals and medications are being delivered to inmates in their areas.

The facility houses 1,344 as of Tuesday, below its capacity of 1,620, the statement said.

The only other current outbreak in state prisons is at the Sterling Correctional Facility in northern Colorado, where coronavirus sickened hundreds of inmates and killed three earlier this year, in the state prison system’s deadliest outbreak. The last positive test among Sterling inmates was Sept. 18, and prison officials said they expect state public health officials to remove them from a state list of current outbreaks by the end of the week, according to Skinner.

Six weeks ago, the Colorado Department of Corrections reached a tentative agreement in a class-action lawsuit over its treatment of state prisoners who are more vulnerable to getting and dying from COVID-19, court records showed. The lawsuit, filed late May in Denver District Court, alleged the risk of coronavirus to vulnerable inmates amounts to “cruel and unusual punishment,” violating their constitutional rights.   

Settlement documents filed in August described the potential of hiring an independent expert to help develop protocols for classifying medically vulnerable inmates and the specific practices that will be followed. Gov. Jared Polis is also a defendant in the case. The Colorado Attorney General’s Office offered no sign it was prepared to make a settlement on the governor’s behalf.

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