‘Horribly botched.’ Lawmakers slam California prisons for ‘out-of-control’ COVID-19 infections
California lawmakers on Wednesday called the state prison system’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic a “fiasco” and criticized a “horribly botched transfer” of inmates to San Quentin that appears to have sparked the state’s most explosive outbreak.
The hearing before the Senate Committee on Public Safety focused on the escalating 1,131-inmate outbreak at San Quentin, but officials also warned of a dangerous feedback loop as the virus is carried into prisons — by inmates and employees — rapidly spreads, and infects workers who carry it back into the community.
“The plain fact is the virus is out of control at our state prison facilities and it is defying every curve we point to for progress,” said Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley.
The hearing was held amid an escalating crisis in California’s prisons, where there are more than 2,600 inmates and 477 employees with active COVID-19 cases. At least 70 prison inmates in California were being treated at area hospitals Tuesday night, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation reported.
Twenty-two inmates and two employees have died since the pandemic began.
While the hearing was announced on June 23, the situation in recent days has erupted at San Quentin as well as at the California Correctional Center in rural northeast California — outbreaks also linked to the state’s transfer of infected inmates.
The California prison system is one of the largest in the country, housing 114,000 inmates across 35 facilities. The health care system for state prisons has been under federal receivership since 2006, when a federal judge ruled conditions were unconstitutional.
Clark Kelso, the federal receiver overseeing prison health care, said the department relied on negative test results that were several weeks old when it moved 122 inmates to San Quentin. Once they got there and were retested, 25 people came back positive for COVID-19.
“It’s abhorrent,” Skinner said of the transfer, “and I still don’t understand it.”
Skinner said, “Our prisons are still overcrowded and there are many hundreds of medically vulnerable and very elderly inmates who, as we know from public health data, are most at risk of death from this virus.”
Assemblyman Marc Levine, D-San Rafael, labeled the transfer the “worst prison health screw up in state history.”
The inmate transfers coupled with resource limitations at an old and ill-equipped San Quentin contributed to the rapid spread of the virus, Kelso said. Now the department is building extra tents and working to free up space to allow for better distancing — transfers have been halted altogether.
“COVID has not spread yet throughout the CDCR system in an uncontrolled fashion,” Kelso said. “But given that COVID is going to be with us for quite some time, I share everyone’s concern that what we’ve done to date still is not enough. There is more that can be done because the virus has plenty of time to continue spreading throughout the system.”
Two of the largest outbreaks at prisons in Southern California have mostly resolved, Kelso said. Another at the California Institution for Men in Chino is easing.
Kelso said San Quentin is only at the beginning. Forty-two people from that prison were hospitalized on Wednesday.
Transfer leads to an outbreak in Lassen
Local officials in Lassen County late last week said inmates who were then transferred from San Quentin caused an outbreak that has sickened at least 215 inmates at a prison in Susanville.
David Teeter, chair of the Lassen County Board of Supervisors, last week said he was “mad as hell at the State of California” for bringing an outbreak to his county. Now, residents in his county are at increased risk of contracting COVID-19, despite months of work to keep the virus at bay.
“We had managed to contact trace, we had managed to do what we were supposed to do,” Teeter said. “And now thanks to the State of California, we’ve got an outbreak.”
Officials did not address those allegations during Wednesday’s hearing.
CDCR Secretary Ralph Diaz defended the department’s response throughout the pandemic. He recapped steps the department has taken since March to reduce the potential for the virus to enter facilities including halting in-person visitation and intake from county jails.
He also said the state was increasing the number of cleanings inside prisons, distributing personal protective equipment, working to increase baseline and repeat testing, and slowly reducing the prison population.
“We have had setbacks such as the San Quentin outbreak but we remain steadfast in our response and dedication to meet the moment to protect our population, staff and the community,” Diaz said. “... We can do better, and I know we will do better.”
Lawmakers, however, criticized the state for not taking quicker steps to practice what Gov. Gavin Newsom and others had preached for months during daily noontime news conferences.
“What we have to ask ourselves now is, was the department of corrections listening?” Skinner said. “Was CDCR mandating the same public health protocols that the state asked of the rest of us?”
State says ‘more could be and should be done’
Since early March, experts have warned about the potential spread of COVID-19 in tightly packed prisons. Compared to other prison outbreaks in the U.S., California’s system appeared to fare relatively well until recently.
Dr. Mark Ghaly, who heads California’s Health and Human Services Agency, said the state has not conducted modeling about the potential spread of the virus inside California’s prisons. He said that’s something that can be done and might help inform future responses, along with ramped-up testing inside prisons to more quickly detect potential outbreaks.
“There is no dispute that more could be and should be done,” Ghaly said.
James King, a former San Quentin inmate who was released six months ago, described an overcrowded, decrepit facility that was already ill-equipped to handle a virus outbreak before the pandemic.
During Wednesday’s hearing, King named several incarcerated people he lived with who have chronic medical conditions, including terminal illnesses, and called on the state to increase the number of people who are released. Those decisions, he said, should not only be based on who has the least amount of time remaining on their sentence — it should consider those who are medically vulnerable or elderly.
“Each of these people, like scores of others we hear from, have families they can return to immediately,” King said. “It’s obvious that the CDCR does not see the real threat here.”
This story was originally published July 1, 2020 at 1:20 PM with the headline "‘Horribly botched.’ Lawmakers slam California prisons for ‘out-of-control’ COVID-19 infections."