Two more California prison workers have coronavirus; inmate families fear outbreak
As concerns mount about the possibility of the coronavirus spreading through California prisons, officials say two more employees have tested positive but no inmates have yet been found to have the virus that causes COVID-19.
SUNDAY NIGHT UPDATE: INMATE TESTS POSITIVE FOR CORONAVIRUS
State corrections officials say two workers at the California Institution for Men in Chino in San Bernardino County tested positive for the disease, joining a third employee at California State Prison, Sacramento, near Folsom as having testing positive.
A fourth worker at San Quentin State Prison that officials said Friday had been infected has since tested negative. None of the employee identities or their jobs has been revealed.
To date, none of the more than 117,000 inmates inside California prisons has tested positive, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. But family members, staffers who work inside and lawyers for the inmates are increasingly concerned about an outbreak spreading quickly through the overcrowded facilities.
Inmate advocacy groups are calling for rapid moves to release older inmates near projected release dates who are not considered a threat, while a federal judge in Sacramento last week ordered the creation of a task force of inmate attorneys, prison and state hospital officials to report back to her by Friday on the situation.
A corrections source has told The Sacramento Bee that four inmates at Mule Creek State Prison have been isolated with coronavirus-like symptoms, but corrections officials have not responded to repeated questions about that and have not revealed how many inmates have been tested for the disease.
Vanessa Ashford, whose husband, Mark, is an inmate at the Correctional Training Facility in Soledad, said she has not spoken to her husband since Tuesday, when he told her he was sick. The next day she heard from a friend who told her Mark Ashford had been hospitalized, but she has been unable to get additional information from CDCR.
“It has now been another two days with no appropriate response from the CDCR regarding my husband,” Ashford wrote in an email Saturday to The Bee. “I have not spoken to him since Tuesday March 17th at all.
“I have spoken with staff at CTF and been told he was moved and I have 3 separate times asked that he call home. There is no justification for him not having phone access, unless of course he is so sick that he cannot call in which case medical staff has the legal duty to notify his wife, ME!”
Ashford said her husband was living in a dorm with 200 other inmates sleeping on bunk beds in close quarters before he became ill.
“At this point, I have no choice but to assume the CDCR is intentionally withholding pertinent information,” she said. “I fully intend to utilize every single avenue to represent and advocate for not only my husband but also every single inmate and their family. I am disappointed in the lack of consideration and communication from this government organization.”
The wife of an inmate at San Quentin told The Bee that many inmates do not want to report they are sick because they fear being removed and held in segregation. She also said that despite corrections officials saying they are taking inmates’ temperatures as they question them about symptoms, that is not happening.
“They are not taking temperatures, just asking questions, then they send the inmate off to work,” according to the inmate’s wife, who is not being identified because her husband contacted her using a contraband cell phone. “Even though they are on lockdown, there are critical workers still working I guess. Last time when the flu was going around temperatures were taken.
“A lawyer came in that was positive and they quarantined the two inmates he saw.”
This story was originally published March 22, 2020 at 8:18 AM with the headline "Two more California prison workers have coronavirus; inmate families fear outbreak."