Four state prison inmates — three of them at California State Prison, Los Angeles County, in Lancaster — have now tested positive for coronavirus, along with 18 corrections workers throughout the prison system, officials said Monday.

The fourth inmate is housed at the California Institution for Men in Chino, and the growing numbers of positive tests among prisoners and staffers come as federal judges are preparing for a Thursday hearing over whether an emergency order should be issued releasing some inmates from the overcrowded prisons.

The first inmate who tested positive was at Lancaster and was serving food to countless inmates before officials determined he had COVID-19, according to fellow inmate Samuel Brown, who said one of the later inmates had to be rushed out of the prison in an ambulance.

“They brought one of the guys to my job and he was in terrible shape,” Brown said by phone from the prison. “I work in the health facility, like the prison hospital. Everybody was afraid. They didn’t know what to do...”

Brown said he was directed to clean up after the inmate and used a hazmat suit while doing so.

“His vitals became really alarming, so they had to call 911 and the ambulance had to go and get him,” he said. “I had to go in right behind him and clean up his cell. I’m still shook up.”

None of the individuals who have tested positive have been identified by name, although a judge said Friday that one of the employees was working in a group setting in March with inmates in need of mental health care.

The growing number of coronavirus cases comes as staffers, inmates and their families are clamoring for faster action by state corrections officials to provide more protective gear and find ways to ensure more distance between individuals inside the prisons.

“We are not being given boxes of gloves, we’re not being given masks,” said one health worker inside a state prison.

That worker, who did not want to be identified for fear of retaliation by California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation officials, added that some group meetings with inmates had been reduced in size, but that the rooms where they are required to meet for sessions still are not large enough to provide for 6 feet of separation.

“We’ve been given hand sanitizer boxes, but there’s no hand sanitizer in them,” the worker added.

Some workers say the prison system began doing checks on employees entering the facilities last week, asking questions about their health and whether they were sick, but that officials did not begin taking their temperatures at some locations until Friday. They also said those measures created jams of workers standing close to each other as they awaited entry.

Prison officials say in a COVID-19 emergency plan filed with a federal judge in Sacramento last week that they are “taking necessary precautions” to deal with the crisis, including isolating inmates with fevers or respiratory issues and quarantining those who test positive.

But attorneys for tens of thousands of mentally ill inmates have filed a motion with a special three-judge panel asking for an emergency order that would allow the release of non-violent, older, infirm or ill inmates and others in a bid to reduce overcrowding and lessen the threat of an explosion of the disease among inmates and staff.

The state is due to file its response to that motion by noon Tuesday, with the three federal judges expected to hold a hearing on the issue Thursday.

“The lives of untold numbers of incarcerated people, staff and members of the community are at unnecessary risk because (prison officials) have not taken urgently needed measures to reduce the density of the prison population,” attorneys for the inmates said in a court filing.

This story was originally published March 30, 2020 at 4:01 PM with the headline "Four inmates, 18 workers in California prisons have tested positive for coronavirus."