Allegheny County Jail prepares for coronavirus possibilities

Allegheny County Jail officials are working with the county health department and emergency services to prepare for a potential coronavirus outbreak at the jail, Warden Orlando Harper and Chief Deputy Warden Laura Williams said during a Jail Oversight Board meeting.

“As we know, a confined environment is something where we have to take these risks very seriously, because disease spread can happen so quickly,” Williams told the board Thursday.

Hundreds of people move through the Allegheny County Jail each day: The intake department handles about 100 people daily, committing between 50 and 70 new inmates per day, while dozens more move in and out of the jail for court hearings, according to figures provided by the jail.

The jail housed 2,357 people on Feb. 1. Data from the past 12 months show an average of 1,220 new inmates are committed to the jail each month.

Two individuals in the eastern part of Pennsylvania — one in Delaware County, the other in Wayne County — have been quarantined and are presumed to be the state’s first two cases of covid-19, Gov. Tom Wolf announced Friday.

As of Friday afternoon, there had not been any confirmed cases of covid-19 in Allegheny County.

Housing units at the Allegheny County Jail, as well as hallways and high-volume areas of the jail, are equipped with hand sanitizer stations. Posted signs remind inmates and staff to wash their hands frequently. Cleaning products are delivered to housing units daily for inmates to use to clean their cells and high-volume surface areas.

Sick people are already being separated from healthy people as the jail deals with seasonal flu cases, and inmates receive a health screening during the intake process, Williams said.

“We encourage frequent hygiene, and we of course will be stepping up those measures in the facility,” Williams said.

That includes taking an inventory of personal protective gear like gloves and masks, she said.

Each inmate cell is equipped with a sink, running water and soap, and inmates are provided with personal hygiene products like toothpaste, shampoo, deodorant and feminine hygiene products.

Inmates can buy different varieties or brand-name hygiene products from the commissary.

Bethany Hallam, an at-large member of Allegheny County Council who sits on the jail oversight board, said she’s worried that the standard products provided by the jail are are insufficient, and that inmates may not be given access to gloves or masks due to other safety concerns.

Hallam, a Democrat from Ross, has been open about the time she spent incarcerated in the Allegheny County Jail in 2016.

“It’s not like everybody goes and washes their hands as soon as they’re done eating,” she said. “A lot of times, you’re eating in your cell, which is the same exact room where you’re sleeping, you’re eating right next to your toilet. So to say that the same precautions we want to take for the general public, we’re going to take in jail, you can’t compare the two things. I foresee this being where the crisis happens.”

Williams would not discuss staffing details security concerns, but said plans are in place to maintain jail operations if correctional and healthcare staff are sick and unable to work.

The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, which oversees state prisons, will work with the state health department to monitor issues related to the coronavirus.

“We always work to keep our prisons clean and we know that the institutional setting can lead to a variety of illnesses, even communicable ones, that’s why our policies are clear,” Maria Finn, press secretary for the department of corrections, said in a statement. “We remind staff and inmates to wash hands, have hand sanitizer stations located throughout our facilities, monitor sick call and illnesses and work with the state health department.”

Correctional facilities around the nation are taking precautions. California’s Sonoma County Jail, which houses about 1,000 inmates, has intensified screening for covid-19 symptoms at intake, the Press Democrat of Sonoma reported. New inmates are checked for signs of respiratory illness and asked about international travel or if they have had contact with anyone under isolation for the coronavirus.

If they answer yes to any of those questions, they are immediately quarantined until they can be transferred to a hospital, the Press Democrat reported.

Three cases of covid-19 have been reported in Georgia, where county jails are taking additional steps to screen patients at intake and are installing hand-washing stations in common areas, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

Jails in Washington state, where 12 deaths related to covid-19 have occurred so far, are taking similar steps, the Kitsap Sun reported.