Coronavirus Outbreak At South Bay Jails Alarms Officials: Report

SANTA CLARA COUNTY, CA — A coronavirus outbreak at Santa Clara County’s jails has alarmed officials and raised questions about safety protocols, The San Jose Mercury News reports.

The case count at the county’s jails has nearly tripled within the span of three weeks according to the report, which cites data from the sheriff’s office indicating that of its 151 confirmed COVID-19 cases as of Sunday, 98 have tested positive since July 20.

There are currently 82 infected inmates in custody, the report said. Most are being held at the Elmwood Correctional Complex in Milpitas, and the others at the Main Jail in North San Jose.

Assistant Sheriff Timothy Davis acknowledged concerns about the spread of the coronavirus at the county’s jails during a virtual meeting with the county supervisors’ Public Safety and Justice Committee last week, the report said.

“We understand that compliance in the jails across all of our groups, civilian and sworn, is not 100 percent,” Davis said according to the report.

“And because of that we are striving to implement protocols to enforce 100 percent compliance not just with social distancing but also with the mask wearing, and proper mask wearing at that.”

“We know we have to increase supervision, and potential corrective action,” he said.

The sheriff’s office announced in a statement Monday plans to expand testing of jail staff and enhanced testing for infected inmates before they are released from quarantine into the general population, the report said.

A public defender who represents four defendants in custody at the county jails paints a bleak picture of an environment in which adherence to COVID-19 safety protocols is nearly impossible despite emergency measures that have reduced the county’s jail population by more than a third to below 2,100, the report said.

“There’s no social distance, some have access to masks, some don’t, and some get masks just before they go to court. Guards are wearing masks half the time,” Lara Wallman told The Mercury News.

“Most of my clients are people of color who are at high risk for complications. It could be death sentence, and it’s only a matter of time before people are dying.”

The outbreak isn’t unique to Santa Clara County’s jails.

The coronavirus is spreading at an exponentially greater rate more than in the general population in the United States – a rate more than five times higher according to data compiled by the UCLA School of Law’s COVID-19 Behind Bars Data Project and Johns Hopkins, ABC News reports.

A South Bay man who worked as a correctional sergeant at San Quentin in Marin County, one of the nation’s hardest hit prisons by the coronavirus, died of COVID-19 on Sunday, The San Francisco Chronicle reports.

Sgt. Gilbert “Bobby” Polanco was 55 according to the report.

Read more in The San Jose Mercury News

Full coronavirus coverage: Coronavirus In California: What To Know

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