Staff at Missouri prisons face enhanced screening amid virus

A lone man walks in a park across from Union Station on Wednesday, March 18, 2020, in Kansas City, Mo. Visitors to the park were few due to concerns about the coronavirus.

AP Photo/Charlie Riedel

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Anyone entering a Missouri Department of Corrections office or facility will undergo enhanced screening in an effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus, state officials say.

The agency said the new procedure will require everyone — staff, volunteers, vendors and other visitors — to answer a series of health-related questions when entering a corrections-related office or facility, ranging from community supervision centers to the state's 20 prisons, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

Corrections spokeswoman Karen Pojmann said there are no suspected cases of COVID-19 among the state's nearly 26,000 inmates but prison officials are preparing for the possibility. She said there are no plans to release any inmates.

The announcement from the Corrections Department on Wednesday came as the ACLU urged Missouri Gov. Mike Parson to commute the sentence of any inmate considered particularly vulnerable to the virus whose sentence would end within the next two years. The ACLU also urged police to stop arresting people for minor offenses.

"Missouri has an obligation to its residents to stop the spread of COVID-19 and it cannot do so if it ignores the needs of over 30,000 Missourians currently incarcerated," Luz María Henríquez, executive director of the ACLU of Missouri, said in a statement.

Meanwhile, University of Missouri undergraduate students still living on campus in Columbia after classes were moved online were told this week to make plans to move out. The University of Missouri system announced last week that spring semester classes would move online but had planned to keep the residence halls open.

The change occurred because public health officials instructed the university to reduce the density of on-campus housing, William Stackman, vice provost for student affairs, said in an email to students.

The university will work with students to set departure dates and will help students who don't have permanent homes — such as international students — find a place to live, university officials said. Graduate students are not being asked to move out of university housing, The Columbia Missourian reported.

Southeast Missouri State University joined most other major colleges in the state in saying that all classes for the rest of the spring semester will be held online.

U.S. Rep. Ann Wagner of Missouri announced Wednesday night that she would self-quarantine because she met with a colleague last week who has tested positive for COVID-19. Wagner, a Republican, said she had no symptoms but was isolating herself as a precaution after consulting with Congress' attending physician. She was the first House member from Missouri to announce a self-quarantine, The Kansas City Star reported.

Greene County health officials on Thursday confirmed the county's fifth and sixth cases. One is a person who had contact with someone who previously tested positive and the other is someone who traveled in the U.S. to an "impacted area."

Also, officials at the Kansas City Veterans Affairs Medical center said they had identified a second veteran as a positive case. All three people are quarantining at home.

Those reports come after state health officials said Wednesday that 24 people have tested positive for the coronavirus in Missouri, including one person who died in Boone County.

For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia.