SF Sheriff Miyamoto reports 1st COVID-19 case among jail inmates
San Francisco Sheriff Paul Miyamoto says immigration enforcement is a federal matter.
SAN FRANCISCO - The San Francisco Sheriff's Department announced the first positive case of coronavirus at its jails on Thursday.
The male inmate who tested positive had only been in custody for 24 hours and was released prior to the results coming back positive, sheriff's officials said.
The inmate has since been contacted by the city's Department of Public Health. Department officials have also contacted jail staff and others who had contact with him, although the inmate had been isolated from the general jail population.
"We were prepared for this eventually and are doing everything we can to protect the people in our custody as well as the health and safety of the greater community that we serve," Sheriff Paul Miyamoto said in a statement, adding that his office and DPH's Jail Health Services have increased efforts to minimize contact among incarcerated people since the pandemic began.
"We've had a month to prepare for the possibility that someone in our jails would test positive," Director of Jail Health Services Dr. Lisa Pratt said.
"This allows us to quarantine all new bookings, enforce social distancing protocols and mask all staff. The fact that the person who tested positive was in jail for such a short period of time and that everyone was masked decreases the possibility of meaningful contact and spread," Pratt said.
Although the case is the first of an inmate testing positive for COVID-19, last month sheriff's officials reported a total of five staff members who tested positive, including two deputies at County Jail 4.
Despite already having one of the nation's lowest incarceration rates, the city's jail population is currently reported to be at a historic low due to the stay-at-home order issued by city officials. As of Thursday, there are 733 people in the city's jail, which is a 35 percent drop from the average daily jail count back in January of this year.
Further efforts to keep the jail count low to minimize the risk of COVID-19 infection includes the release of 26 inmates last month by the sheriff's department. The released inmates had all already been sentenced and had less than 60 days left to serve.
Also, on Sunday, Jail Health Services moved to begin COVID-19 testing for all new inmates, on top of routine infectious diseases screenings and medical interviews already performed on all new inmates prior to booking.
In a statement, Public Defender Mano Raju said, "This is the exact scenario my team has fought day in and day out to avoid by reducing the jail population. That this confirmed case comes after a substantial jail population reduction demonstrates why we have not been content to rest on the tremendous work done thus far, and why we continue to fight for people to be released.
"Despite the reductions in the jail population, multiple strangers still share sinks, toilets and bunk beds. These conditions prevent social distancing and proper hygiene and continue to be dangerous for everyone living or working inside the jails," Raju said.
Raju on Thursday renewed a plea to Miyamoto to release as many people as possible from the city's jails to reduce the virus' spread. He's also calling on the Police Department to continue reducing the number of people arrested and booked into jail.
Raju lastly called on DPH and the Human Services Agency to immediately implement an emergency ordinance passed by city supervisors Tuesday, requiring the city to secure 8,250 hotel rooms for unhoused people who can't quarantine. The ordinance also requires the city to provide rooms for people coming out of jail and have nowhere else to go.