Pulaski County jail admits prisoner positive for covid-19

LITTLE ROCK — An individual arrested by Little Rock police who recently tested positive for the coronavirus is being held in a negative pressure room in the Pulaski County jail, according to a news release Monday from the Sheriff’s Office.

Authorities said Little Rock police informed facility staff of the individual’s positive covid-19 status before the detainee arrived at the jail. Medical care will be provided by Turn-Key Health, the jail’s health services provider.

The arrival of the individual infected with covid-19 at the Pulaski County jail presents the risk of an outbreak happening at a third detention facility in Arkansas. Two prisons in the state are already struggling to contain covid-19 outbreaks, and a total of more than 1,000 federal and state inmates have tested positive for the virus so far in Arkansas.

The Pulaski County inmate, who faces felony charges, is being held in a negative pressure room in the jail and will remain there until the person can be released under conditions set by the courts, the Sheriff’s Office said.

A negative pressure room is designed to contain airborne contaminants through a ventilation system removing more exhaust air from the room than air than is allowed in.

The detainee, who the Sheriff’s Office didn’t identify, is the only person in the room, according to Mitch McCoy, a spokesman for the Pulaski County Sheriff’s Office.

McCoy declined to say when the inmate was booked into the jail, citing the federal health privacy law HIPAA. He argued because the Sheriff’s Office has identified the arresting agency, disclosing the booking date risked giving away too much information that could be used to identify the individual.

As of Monday afternoon, 886 people were being held in the Pulaski County jail, according to McCoy.

Two prisons have become hotbeds of the coronavirus pandemic in Arkansas. At the Cummins Unit, a large state prison in Lincoln County, 873 inmates have tested positive, Arkansas Department of Health Secretary Nate Smith said during a briefing on Monday afternoon. At least four inmates at the Cummins Unit have died of covid-19.

Inside a federal prison in Forrest City, 172 people have tested positive for covid-19 as of Monday, an increase of 22 from the day before, according to Smith.

During Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s news conference on Monday, Smith said Pulaski County jail officials have been in contact with his staff at the Health Department for guidance on how to avoid spreading the virus in the facility.

The jail serves the most populous county in Arkansas and has a capacity of more than 1,200 beds.

The Pulaski County Sheriff’s Office has adopted measures to attempt to prevent the virus from spreading in the jail, including temperature and pulse oxidation screenings for new arrivals, as well as daily screenings for inmates and staff. In-person visitation at the jail has been suspended since March.

However, the jail has only released a limited number of inmates outside of the usual cycle of detainees arriving at the jail and being released after posting bail since the outbreak began. In fact, the number of inmates at the jail Monday was roughly the same as it was during the first week of April, when authorities reported a population of 874.

McCoy said the jail population has been floating between 830 to 860.

Pulaski County Sheriff Eric Higgins said last month the county jail doesn’t have electronic monitors available and hasn’t had them for years. As a result, he said, the jail cannot release a significant number of inmates to home confinement, unlike the jail in Washington County, as a preventative measure to stave off a large-scale outbreak.

Additionally, Higgins said decisions about releases aren’t made unilaterally by the Sheriff’s Office and require input from judges and prosecutors.