The hastily executed transfer of nearly 200 people in the California prison system unleashed a public health disaster that put the lives of thousands of prisoners and staff at risk and led to dozens of deaths, according to a new report from the inspector general’s office. of the state (OIG)
The report published on Monday, the third in a series examining the Covid-19 catastrophe in California state prisons, details the circumstances of the May 2020 transfer of 189 people from the California Institute for Men (CIM) in Chino, California , to San Quentin state prison in the bay area and Corcoran state prison in the Central Valley.
The CIM witnessed one of the first outbreaks in the California prison system and, to slow the spread of Covid-19, officials from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) and the California Correctional Health Services (CCHCS) decided to transfer people at CIM who were at risk of serious illness and death in prisons without Covid. Prior to the transfer, San Quentin did not report any positive cases of Covid-19 and Corcoran had only one.
But, a month after the transfer, Corcoran reported almost 130 infections and San Quentin reached almost 1,200 cases, according to the CDCR’s Covid-19 tracking website. Cases in San Quentin continued to increase in the following months, with infections rising to 2,100. At least 28 people died.
Activists, officials and families of incarcerated people quickly pointed to the transfers as a major political flaw and regretted that the state was using them as a substitute to make room for freeing the elderly and the sick.
Now, seven months later, the inspector general’s office concluded that employees ignored the concerns of CIM health professionals before the transfer.
Two days before transfers started, a nurse supervisor at the unit, concerned about pressure from prison executives to take seats on buses bound for Northern California prisons, sent an email to the nursing leadership and asked: “What about patient safety? What about Covid’s precautions? ”, According to the report.
The next day, a CIM manager sent another email to CDCR management expressing surprise and concern at the decision to conduct the transfers, the report says. “It is difficult to get things right when we are in a hurry,” wrote the manager.
After the transfers, the prison leadership in San Quentin and Corcoran did not quarantine and adequately tested the transferees, the investigators concluded, and the team was unable to trace contacts and limit staff movements.
Two transfers who exhibited symptoms of Covid-19 on arrival at San Quentin were housed alongside hundreds of others in cell blocks with open cells that allowed air to flow inside the prison, the report says, adding that the outbreaks were exacerbated by consistent movement of employees from building to building.
Corcoran prevented an outbreak on the San Quentin scale, the report noted, because the institution is newer, better ventilated and has solid doors that prevent air and droplets from traveling freely through the layers of cells.
CCHCS and CDCR officials say they disagree with some of the inspector general’s “conclusions and interpretations”, according to a statement sent to the OIG. The office says it is behind the report.
Currently 2,018 people imprisoned in California’s state prison are infected with Covid-19. Since the pandemic, 47,502 people – more than half of the state’s current prison population – have had positive results and 195 died of complications.