First California Men’s Colony inmate dies due to COVID-19
A California Men’s Colony inmate died due to the coronavirus on Sept. 1, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
However, the death has not yet been added to San Luis Obispo County’s COVID-19 death count.
The inmate, who died Sept. 1, was the first person to die due to COVID-19 at the prison in San Luis Obispo.
According to a CDCR statement, the inmate died in an “outside hospital from what appear to be complications related to COVID-19.” Further details about the inmate were not released.
CMC is still experiencing a coronavirus outbreak that began in late July.
As of Thursday, a total of 271 inmates and 41 employees at the prison had tested positive for coronavirus. Thirty of the cases were reported in the past 14 days, according to the CDCR.
Six inmates with active cases had been released from the prison, while 96 people with active cases remain in custody, according to the CDCR.
The CDCR reported that 168 cases in the prison have been “resolved,” while 10 employees that had COVID-19 have returned to work.
Why doesn’t SLO County death count include CMC inmate death?
San Luis Obispo County Public Health officer Dr. Penny Borenstein addressed the CMC death and confusion over what is considered a death due to COVID-19 at a new briefing Wednesday.
Since mid-March, the county has removed two cases from its count that were initially labeled as COVID-19 deaths after further investigation into the causes of death.
“We had made a decision some weeks ago that in our county we would only count those that have underlying cause of death listed as COVID,” Borenstein said.
According to Borenstein, death certificates can list four or more causes of death and if COVID-19 is considered one of those causes of death, it will be considered a death due to COVID-19.
As of Thursday, the county said, 20 residents had died due to COVID-19. A few additional cases remained under investigation and had not been included in the death count — including the death of the CMC inmate.
“We have not reported (the CMC death) in our statistics yet as we have determined that we will only put it in our count on our public-facing website once we have a final death certificate so that we will have no more variability going forward,” Borenstein said.
In the cases of all 20 coronavirus deaths in San Luis Obispo County, Borenstein received death certificates from the patients’ attending physicians and signed the certificates, she said Wednesday.
Borenstein said she wanted to disspell any confusion about data recently released by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that show 94% of people who died from COVID-19 had pre-existing health conditions.
“That may in fact be significant contributors to the death that happened from COVID-19,” Borenstein said. “The fact that you had high blood pressure and went on to have COVID may have made the disease more serious and may have been a contributing factor to your demise, but it is not the high blood pressure that caused the death.
“Conversely ... if you had COVID, you’re a young, healthy person, and the doctor that reports your death happens to know that when you die in a fiery car accident, COVID is not a contributing factor to that death and would not be counted,” she added.
