‘Minor’ coronavirus outbreak reported in Stanislaus County Jail
The Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Department is reporting a “minor” coronavirus outbreak in its jail system.
“Twenty-five inmates and eight staff members have tested positive for COVID-19 after a minor outbreak inside one of the Sheriff’s Custodial facilities,” authorities said in a news release issued Tuesday afternoon. Additional isolation and quarantine procedures have been put in place to limit the spread of the COVID-19 virus to other areas of the jail.
Authorities said the outbreak was discovered Nov. 16 during screening required for inmates being sent to state prison.
“(The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation) requires a negative test before we can transport an inmate into their custody,” Sheriff’s Captain Frank Martinez said in the release. “We tested 70 inmates who were to be transported and one of them came back positive.”
The inmate who tested positive was housed in a minimum/medium housing unit with 56 other inmates, all of whom were then tested. Also tested were inmates in the two other housing units, as all were overseen by the same staff.
Sixteen inmates in the same pod tested positive, along with eight inmates in one of the other pods and eight staff members..
The remaining inmates received negative results, authorities said.
“All of the inmates housed in the affected areas have been quarantined and isolated from the rest of the inmate population,” said Martinez. “We have medical staff on hand to treat the inmates and protocol in place to help prevent the spread of the virus within our facilities.”
So far, all of the inmates and staff have either been asymptomatic or have had minor symptoms, authorities said.
“I am very impressed with my staff and their ability to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 in our facilities to this point,” Sheriff Jeff Dirkse said in the release. “The fact that we have a minor break-out is not a surprise when you consider the sheer numbers of people that we deal with in a congregate living setting. The surprise is that we were able to avoid it for this long and that’s a testament to the hard work and setting high procedural standards.”
Sgt. Tom Letras said six inmates had previously tested positive since the coronavirus surfaced in the county in March, each one discovered by preventative screening measures.
That is a good record for a jail facility that’s handled 11,451 bookings since March 1, he said.
“We had expected at some point we would have an outbreak in our facility,” Letras said. “We are proud of the job our staff has done.”
This story was originally published November 24, 2020 at 4:15 PM.
