County jails hit by virus surge
The Santa Clara County jail system is seeing its largest surge in COVID-19 cases since a string of record-setting outbreaks in January, underscoring the ongoing infection risk in custody environments even amid wide availability of vaccines.
There were 100 active cases in the county jails as of Nov. 8, with the majority reported at the Elmwood men’s jail in Milpitas, according to county data and accounts from family members of people being held in the jails.
The surge began Nov. 2, when 15 new in-custody infections were recorded. In the next seven days, at least 84 new cases surfaced. That figure includes 29 new cases reported Nov. 8, marking the largest one-day total in nine months. A precise figure is not available because the online COVID-19 dashboard maintained by the sheriff’s office has a disparity between daily new cases and current active cases.
A woman whose husband is being held in Elmwood’s M8, a dorm-style unit that has been hard hit by COVID-19 outbreaks since the start of the pandemic, says improper mask-wearing by correctional deputies and a lack of adequate clean clothing continue to beset inmates trying to protect themselves in close quarters.
“None of that is right,” said the woman, who asked that her identity be withheld to protect her husband from retaliation for speaking out.
In response to an inquiry from this news organization about the spike in infections, the sheriff’s office said it is adhering to guidelines from the public health department and that protective masks are being provided to people in custody at least three times a week.
The sheriff’s office declined to answer a question about vaccination rates among people in its jail custody, saying only that vaccines are “provided to inmates upon request.” In August, the county responded to a similar inquiry by stating that “due to the high turn-over rate of inmates within our County Correctional facilities, we do not have a percentage of those that are vaccinated.”
Public Defender Molly O’neal, whose office represents the majority of people held in jail custody, said she believes “the jail is doing a good job monitoring newly admitted people,” and lauded the correctional staff’s vaccine adherence, but is still “alarmed at the rise in COVID cases.
“There is work to do to get incarcerated individuals vaccinated as well as the unhoused population in the community who often end up in the jail. This is a stark reminder to continue to keep the jail population low to keep the spread of the virus to a minimum,” O’neal said. “This involves keeping $0 bail and working diligently to release as many people as possible safely back into the community, as the vast majority of them will be back there in any event.”
O’neal was referencing an ongoing emergency order repeatedly extended by the county Superior Court, which sets bail for misdemeanor and low-level felony offenses at $0 except for specified offenses, including serious and violent crimes. The aim of the pandemic-related order, first instituted by the state Judicial Council, is to prevent the jails from becoming crowded with people accused of minor crimes.
But the effect of the order, combined with other amnesty-oriented measures from the courts, prosecutors, public defenders and sheriff’s office, has faded. The daily jail census decreased from 3,200 to 2,100 between spring and fall last year, but by Nov. 9 had surpassed 2,500.
The danger facing inmates may apply equally to the staff tasked with their care. CAL/OSHA, the state’s workplace-injury watchdog, launched a formal inspection Oct. 26 after being alerted by the sheriff’s office that a correctional deputy was hospitalized for a COVID-19 infection contracted while on duty. An agency spokesperson confirmed that the deputy is assigned to the Elmwood jail.
Jose Valle II, an organizer for Silicon Valley Debug who focuses on inmaterights issues, agreed with O’neal that the COVID-19 risk has lessened, but said the current infection surge in the jails is a reminder that the danger “is not over.”
Valle said problems with cleanliness continue to harm people who get infected in jail and are then quarantined in cells not designed for that purpose.
“Those are not sanitary for a healthy person, let alone someone with COVID-19,” he said.
The woman whose husband is being held at Elmwood added that other preventable risks persist, such as people who have been isolated or quarantined commingling with other inmates during transport from jail to court and back.
“My husband personally observed an inmate at court removed from a cell marked ‘blue band,’ which means infected … the sign was removed and another inmate (was) put in without disinfecting the cell,” she said. “This happened twice.”