SHERIFF ANNOUNCES 1ST COUNTY JAIL DEATH BECAUSE OF COVID-19

Family of another man says he got virus at Vista jail; department denies it

A 62-year-old man who fell ill in November at the George Bailey Detention Facility in Otay Mesa died a week later in a hospital from COVID-19, sheriff’s officials said Friday.

Edel Corrales Loredo is the first San Diego County inmate whose death has officially been attributed to COVID-19. But the family of a man who fell ill last June at the Vista Detention Facility and later died at a hospital has sued the Sheriff ’s Department, claiming he contracted COVID-19 at the jail.

Loredo first complained of shortness of breath and a fever Nov. 13, sheriff’s officials said. That month, the Sheriff’s Department reported no fewer than 149 cases of COVID-19 at the Otay Mesa jail.

Medics took Loredo from the jail to a hospital, where his condition declined. He died Nov. 21.

“The (Medical Examiner) determined the cause of death to be respiratory failure due to COVID-19 with contributing causes of asthma, diabetes mellitus, and hypertension,” sheriff ’s homicide Lt. Thomas Seiver said in a news release.

Loredo had been jailed since his July 21 arrest by San Diego police on suspicion of eight charges, including drug possession, DUI and violating parole.

The San Diego Union-tribune first reported the deaths of Loredo and two others in December. Friday’s news release was the first public disclosure of his death by the Sheriff’s Department, which last year stopped announcing jail deaths right after they’d occurred.

At least 12 inmates died in the sheriff ’s custody in 2020, including eight within 49 days in October and November.

Not counted among the 12 who died in jail custody last year was Mark Armendo, the inmate whose family has sued the county alleging that he died after contracting COVID-19 at the Vista jail. Sheriff ’s officials deny the claim.

Department officials did not count Armendo among the county’s in-custody deaths because a court order released him from custody while hospitalized, even though he never left the hospital after being taken there from the Vista jail.

Armendo was sentenced to 32 months in state prison two weeks before he was found unconscious June 29 at the jail. Court records show he was officially released from custody on July 6, a week after he was hospitalized, at the recommendation of the District Attorney’s Office.

“In light of Mr. Armendo’s medical condition, including his positive COVID diagnosis along with the COVID-19 pandemic, the people recommend that the defendant’s sentence should be recalled,” the court order said.

Armendo never left the hospital and died on Aug. 21.

Early in the coronavirus pandemic, the Sheriff’s Department teamed up with judges and attorneys to reduce the jail population from about 5,500 to fewer than 3,800 by the end of the year.

“Due to our mitigation strategies we had very low numbers of positive cases in custody until late 2020,” Lt. Ricardo Lopez, a sheriff ’s spokesman, wrote in an email Friday night.

But by Christmas, the Sheriff ’s Department was reporting more than 400 active cases of COVID-19 among its inmates — or 11 percent of the total jail population at the time. That same week, the department reported the number of total active and inactive cases in the jail had surpassed 1,000, including more than 750 inmates and more than 315 jail staff.

“As the country experienced an increase so did we inside the jails,” Lopez wrote, saying that until the surge near the end of the year, there were never more than about a dozen cases at one time across the jail system.

As of Friday night, the department reported there were 11 active cases of COVID-19 among 4,021 inmates across the jail system’s seven facilities.