LAKEPORT— Twenty-four inmates at the Lake County Jail who are all housed in a single unit are undergoing an isolation period after they were exposed to an inmate who tested positive for the COVID-19 virus, the second inmate this week to have tested positive for the coronavirus, according to information made public by the Lake County Sheriff’s Department Office of Public Information. This most recent case brings the total to five at the facility.
The Sheriff’s Office met with Lake County Public Health on Wednesday after one of the tests from a group of inmates who had been isolated while testing was conducted to determine if they had contracted the virus returned from the lab as positive on Wednesday, officials noted.
The inmates were made to isolate after officials learned late last week that an inmate at the facility had tested positive last week, according to the LCSO.
Officials noted that medical staff will be closely monitoring the isolated inmates and conducting the testing protocols recommended by Public Health. These include the testing of staff and inmates as we work to contain the virus. They added that the Sheriff’s Office continues to provide masks to inmates, employ comprehensive regular cleaning and to disinfect common areas in an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in the jail.
Andrew Harris, a professor of criminology and justice studies at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, said he finds it troubling that more attention is not paid to the conditions that lead to COVID outbreaks in jails.
“Jails are part of our communities,” Harris said. “We have people who work in these jails who go back to their families every night, we have people who go in and out of these jails on very short notice, and we have to think about jail populations as community members first and foremost.”
According to an Associated Press report cited by KHN, The halting of transfers was a critical part of the response by officials in California, whose prisons have been among the hardest hit by COVID-19. An outbreak at San Quentin State Prison this summer helped spur Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom to order the early release of 10,000 inmates from prisons statewide.
Stefano Bertozzi, dean emeritus at the University of California-Berkeley School of Public Health, visited San Quentin before the outbreak, and afterward helped pen an urgent memo outlining immediate actions needed to avert disaster. He recommended halting all intakes at the prison and slashing its population of 3,547 inmates in half. At that point, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation was already more than two months into an intake freeze.
Overcrowding has long been an issue for criminal justice reform advocates. But for Bertozzi, the term “overcrowding” needs to be redefined in the context of COVID-19, with an emphasis on exposure risk. Three inmates sharing a cell designed for two is a bad way to live, he said, “especially for the guy who’s on the floor.” But if those cells are enclosed, they offer far better protection from COVID-19 than 20 inmates sharing a congregate dorm designed for 20.
“It’s how many people are breathing the same air,” Bertozzi said.
In July of this year, inmates in Tulare County’s facility, where 22 cases had been reported, filed a class action suit against Sheriff Mike Boudreaux alleging he’d failed to provide face masks and other safeguards. U.S. District Court Judge Dale Drozd ruled in favor of the inmates in early September, directing Boudreaux to implement official policies requiring face coverings and social distancing.
California resumed county intakes on Aug. 24 following the development of guidelines designed to control transmission risk and prioritize counties with the greatest need for space. But a huge backlog remains: 6,552 state inmates were still being held in county jails as of mid-September, according to corrections officials.
—Kaiser Health News and the Associated Press contributed to this report
