Therapist who met with inmate group among 13 California prison workers to get coronavirus
One of the 13 California prison workers who has tested positive for coronavirus is a therapist who was conducting a group session in March with inmates who need mental health care, a federal judge revealed Friday.
Chief U.S. District Judge Kimberly Mueller made the disclosure during a telephone conference of a task force she ordered formed to address the coronavirus crisis that inmate attorneys fear may cause a devastating outbreak inside California’s 35 prisons.
Prison officials said Friday that 191 inmates have been tested and that one inmate has tested positive for COVID-19, a prisoner in Lancaster at California State Prison, Los Angeles County.
Officials say that 13 prison workers have also tested positive: five at the California Institution for Men; three at CSP, Sacramento; one at Folsom State Prison; one at California Health Care Facility; one at the Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison, Corcoran (which is separate from the Corcoran prison); one at Wasco State Prison and one at San Quentin State Prison.
None of the 13 have been identified by name or position until Mueller’s comments Friday.
The judge is scheduled to take part in an emergency hearing next week with two other federal judges to hear a plea from attorneys for the inmates that non-violent, ill or infirm inmates be released immediately to reduce overcrowding inside the prisons that they say make social distancing impossible.
Mueller said she was satisfied that the task force of inmate attorneys, prison and state hospital officials are working to come up with plans to address the crisis, but added that the situation is urgent.
“I am satisfied that no one is fiddling while Rome burns,” the judge said. “The other observation I would make is that the fire here is invisible, at least in its early stages.
“Prisons are like dense cities, so that is why that I understand you are focusing in the way you are.”
This story was originally published March 27, 2020 at 11:11 AM.