By John Cheves
Lexington Herald-Leader
CENTRAL CITY, Ky. — Michael Gene Welch almost made it.
On Tuesday, after serving more than 20 years behind bars on assault and robbery charges, the 42-year-old Welch walked out of the Green River Correctional Complex, a state prison in Muhlenberg County where the novel coronavirus has infected roughly 400 inmates and staff and killed at least three people.
Welch’s fiancée, Janet Arvola, met him at the prison gate for a joyous reunion and drove him 95 miles to a Paducah halfway house where he would spend the next six weeks completing a rehabilitation program necessary for his final release from state custody.
But on Wednesday, he got a worried call from state health officials. That COVID-19 test he took in the prison more than a week earlier? The test given to more than 1,000 people in the prison because of the outbreak?
His result just came back. Positive.
On Thursday, an unhappy Welch was back in Green River for at least two weeks in segregated housing with other infected inmates, plus however long it takes for him to test negative on two consecutive nasopharyngeal swabs with 24 hours between them.
Arvola, who spent hours in confined spaces with him Tuesday before returning home to her family — including her 84-year-old mother — wants to know how this went wrong.
“I assumed that since they released him, he didn’t have a COVID test pending. Right? Why would the Corrections Department send inmates back into the community right now from Green River if they don’t know whether they’re about to test positive?” Arvola asked Thursday.
Gov. Andy Beshear’s office on Thursday said Welch should not have been released prior to his test result being known.
“This mistaken release or any release of an inmate with a pending COVID-19 test is unacceptable. We are investigating the circumstances that led up to the release and will take any and all appropriate action,” Beshear spokeswoman Crystal Staley said.
Welch showed no symptoms of the virus, such as fever, cough or aches, Arvola said. However, Beshear has said that many inmates and employees at Green River who tested positive never displayed the symptoms.
“My concern now is for my family, for my mother and my sister and her daughter,” said Arvola, who lives in Fort Wayne, Ind. “How much was I exposed? Did I come back here and expose them? Are we seriously at risk of getting sick now?”
There is little communication about COVID-19 testing inside the prison, Arvola said.
“He told me they don’t tell the inmates, ‘Here are your test results,’” she said. “If you don’t hear anything, you just assume that you were negative. When you test positive, he said, the officers hang an isolation sign on your door and then you’re like, ‘Oh. I guess I’ve got it.’”
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