All,
The Monterey County Sheriff’s Office staff has tried to keep our jail staff and inmates informed as to what is going on from the beginning of this COVID epidemic. We have done this via tablets as well as going around talking to the different housing units and speaking to staff at briefings. Things had been fairly stable in and around the jail in recent weeks so the communication had slowed down but there have been some recent events that lead us to reach out again today.
We have had our first positive case of an inmate that had been in custody for some period of time, we had two prior positive cases with individuals who had just been booked into custody. This individual has been quarantined and is being treated as we speak. We had set up protocols for this type of event months ago in coordination with our local Public Health Office and guidelines by the Center for Disease Control (CDC). These protocols worked and helped us identify this individual early on so that we could put our protocol into action quickly in hopes of stopping the spread. As part of this protocol and moving forward for the time being we will be going back to daily temperature checks for all inmates, this is mandatory. We have had mandatory daily temperature checks for staff throughout this entire period.
In addition to our first positive inmate test we had our first staff member test positive. The individual had been off of work for a number of days before testing positive and will be quarantining at home for 14 days before returning to work. This individual self-assessed their symptoms of being sick and went to the doctors, then got tested. We will follow all local public health directions related to this incident as well.
We have, and will continue to, put the health and safety of all individuals working and temporarily living at the Monterey County Jail facility first in everything we do and we will continue to follow the guidelines and directives of the CDC and local Public Health Office in setting our protocols. As the situation continues to develop, we will assess our protocols and adjust accordingly.
Thank you, the Monterey County Jail Management Staff