COVID outbreak explodes at California Men’s Colony — nearly 1 in 3 inmates now has virus
Nearly one in three inmates at California Men’s Colony state prison on the outskirts of San Luis Obispo now has COVID-19, the prison reported over the weekend amid an outbreak that began last month.
That’s by far the highest number of current inmate coronavirus cases among California’s 34 prisons and other correctional facilities. The prison now has nearly three times as many active cases as the second highest-ranking prison, the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla.
The numbers come from new data released by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, which reported Monday that the prison’s inmate population diagnosed with coronavirus within the last 14 days exploded over the weekend to 1,120 inmates,. for a total of 1,126 active cases.
The women’s prison in Chowchilla, by comparison, reported 414 active cases as of Monday.
According to CDCR data, a total of 1,959 cases have been reported at CMC since March, including 16 inmates who were released while sick, and 815 inmates have recovered.
The first positive COVID-19 case of an inmate at the prison was reported in April. Though there were surges in COVID-19 cases toward the end of summer, the facility in the last month experienced its worst outbreak of coronavirus since the pandemic began to spread locally in March.
The first of two inmate deaths was reported in September.
California Men’s Colony, which lies just outside San Luis Obispo on Highway 1, houses roughly 3,800 inmates and has a staff of about 1,800 employees.
According to CDCR, a total of 391 CMC employees have tested positive for coronavirus, including 188 active cases. Approximately 203 employees have returned to work after recovering. That ranks the facility 11th highest among California prisons in terms of employee cases.
No explanation about what is causing the outbreak
Prison administration and county health officials have declined to answer Tribune questions about what contact tracing investigations indicate is leading to the cases.
Lt. John Hill, spokesman for the prison, told the Tribune on Dec. 22 that the health and safety of inmates and staff is the “top priority,” and staff has responded by increasing the frequency of testing, conducting contact tracing and implementing isolation and quarantine measures to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.
Hill said that all staff are required to submit to COVID-19 testing on a weekly basis., and staff who test positive are prevented from entering the institution.
COVID-19 testing of the incarcerated population has been ongoing since the beginning of the pandemic. As of Monday, CDCR reported that 2,706 inmates have been tested in the last 14 days.
Hill said CMC is also following a mandatory statewide modified program that limits movement of both staff and inmates. Recreation yard access, meal service and medical appointments are being scheduled in a manner that limits the number of incarcerated people who can be present in an area at a given time, he said.
Meanwhile, former Warden Josie Gastelo retired on Dec. 31 as the outbreak worsened, according to a spokesman for the prison.
A CDCR spokesperson on Monday afternoon provided to The Tribune a memo sent to staff Dec. 31 that the agency has appointed Danny Samuel as acting warden of the facility.
A request for updated information on the prison’s leadership was not immediately answered by CMC officials Monday morning.
This article has been updated to include comments by a CDCR spokesperson.
This story was originally published January 11, 2021 at 12:10 PM.
