Arizona prison employees now must wear masks
State health director intends to test all inmates for COVID-19
Arizona’s prisons employees were told to wear masks in an internal memo Director David Shinn sent on Monday, two days before the state’s top health official announced testing of inmates in Arizona prisons.
The Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry confirmed the memo on masks with The Arizona Republic.
“A department wide directive was issued this past Monday, that face coverings are required for our staff as part of our ongoing work to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 within ADCRR complexes,” the department said in a statement.
Since Thursday, the department announced there are 144-self reported cases of the novel coronavirus among staff and 314 cases among inmates. The state’s prison population is 40,459, which spans across 10 public and six private facilities.
Who gets masks?
Smaller correctional facilities such as Maricopa County’s jails claim it is supplying all inmates masks when they first enter the facility and when they need a replacement. The county’s jails have seen an increase in cases that outnumber the reported cases in Arizona’s prisons. As of Thursday, Maricopa County has seen 445 reported cases in inmates and 142 of them have recovered.
The state Department of Corrections is not supplying all prison inmates with masks. However, it told The Republic it is examining the expansion of its masking process for inmates.
“In the meantime, we continue to follow CDC guidelines for correctional institutions in providing face coverings to inmates as needed,” a department spokesperson said.
The American Friends Service Committee-Arizona said in a statement that it was relieved that Gov. Ducey has adopted one of the recommendations made by advocacy groups.
“The requirement for prison staff to wear masks is long overdue and will be a small but important step toward slowing the infection in our prisons, as is the promised increase in testing for incarcerated people,” the organization said.
The group wants more done for inmates, including:
Releasing vulnerable inmates. Allowing inmates to wear masks if they choose and making them available.
Halting the practice of making people who violated terms of their community supervision to go back into custody.
iWho gets tested?
Dr. Cara Christ, director of Arizona’s Department of Health Services, announced Wednesday that the state will test staff for COVID-19 antibodies, which could show if they’d previously been infected, at one prison facility each week. Only one facility is being done per week to give time to capture all employees as prisons operate 24/7 with multiple shifts.
The state already had done swab tests — which can show if a person currently has COVID-19 — for more than 1,300 employees in at least the Yuma prison.
Sonora Quest Laboratories will handle the testing. Florence was the first facility that received on-site serology testing. The tests detect if a person was exposed to the virus or has developed antibodies.
“This is an exceptional opportunity for the Department to provide COVID-19 testing to our brave frontline men and women who continue to serve the public as first responders throughout the pandemic,” Shinn said in a released statement.
Serology testing for employees also will occur at the six private facilities that contract with the state. As of Thursday, the private prisons reported 14 cases among inmates. The department is not reporting the locations of positive cases among staff.
Unlike Maricopa County jails, Christ said the state will test all inmates, too. She offered no timeline for inmate testing, or whether it is antibody testing or swab testing.
“We will be partnering with some of our private lab partners to develop that timeline to make sure that we have the resources so that we can get those individuals tested,” she said Wednesday.
A spokesperson for the department of corrections told The Republic it is working with the health department to determine which testing method is most appropriate for inmates.
Containing spread among inmates
The health department is working with the prisons to conduct contract tracing and to make sure best practices for infection control are being followed at each facility.
“Those positive cases are put into isolation where they are isolated medically with other COVID patients if necessary, to keep them out of the general population,” Christ said. “And then the population is monitored for symptoms over the next 14 days.”
The department of corrections spokesperson told The Republic it is working with the state’s health department to develop a timeline and identify necessary resources for inmate testing.
The American Friends Services Committee-Arizona, which shared their concerns about the treatment of inmates with The Republic last month, said only 6% of the population has been tested at this time.
“The Governor and Department of Corrections must take bold action now to contain the outbreak that has begun in our prison system,” the organization said.
In May, the group said Christ’s statements about protecting inmates from the virus raise more questions than answers. They want to know whether more data will be made available to the public and what will be done to protect inmates.
Caroline Isaacs, director of the organization, told The Republic it is important for the public to know the locations where the guards who test positive work. She said this would help understand the locations of outbreaks and help inform families of inmates.
“We have the obligation to tell them that,” she said.