Nevada prison system suspends inmate visitations due to COVID surge

State prison inmates in Nevada will not be able to have visitors for an unknown period due to an outbreak of COVID-19 at corrections facilities across the Silver State.

The Nevada Department of Corrections made the announcement on its Facebook page on Thursday.

“The Nevada Department of Corrections is seeing an increase in COVID-19 cases in institutions across the state,” the agency said in the post. “As a matter of precaution, all visitation will be temporarily suspended, effective immediately.”

The agency did not say how many cases have been detected in state corrections facilities or whether the increase involves inmates, staff or both.

In July, NDOC was criticized by Gov. Steve Sisolak for what he said was a low vaccination rate for NDOC employees. At the time, there were about 41 percent of employees vaccinated, and 51 percent of inmates were vaccinated.

The NDOC did not give a time estimate for when visitation might resume.

Contact Glenn Puit by email at gpuit@reviewjournal.com. Follow @GlennatRJ on Twitter.