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About a quarter of inmates at Macomb County Jail have tested positive for the coronavirus, and now every new person enrolled in the dungeon undergoes a rapid test for the virus upon arrival.
“We are seeing a lot more people on remand with HIV,” said Macomb County Sheriff Anthony Wickersham, who tested positive for the coronavirus in November. “With what we went through last month, we are testing everyone.”
Wickersham said there were around half a dozen positive cases in the prison as of early November “which was concerning”. He said medical staff underwent rapid tests and performed tests in mid-November, followed by polymerase chain reaction or PCR tests, which are more reliable.
As of Tuesday, 143 inmates out of 550 have tested positive for the virus and one is hospitalized, Wickersham said. He said at least 30 employees had also tested positive.
He said inmates who tested positive after the rapid test had been quarantined in their units. The epidemic has affected two floors of the lock-up at Mount Clemens, which is still well below its capacity of 1,438 beds.
The prison continues to quarantine all new detainees for 14 days, as it has done since the start of the pandemic, he said.
When asked how the virus had spread in the prison, Wickersham said: “If I knew how it got in, I would have stopped it. We have to be open. We are a 24 hour operation.”
However, he believes community spread is a factor. He said five people recently brought in by various agencies have tested positive.
The state reported 366,242 confirmed cases of the virus and 9,324 deaths on Tuesday. Macomb County has 36,738 confirmed cases of COVID-19 as well as 1,235 confirmed deaths, state data shows.
Macomb County Public Defender Thomas Tomko said people have contacted his office – from lawyers to relatives or friends of those held in the prison. They are concerned about their clients or loved ones and ask what they can do.
Tomko said that when the pandemic began in the spring, an executive order from Governor Gretchen Whitmer allowed authorities to treat incarcerated people in a manner similar to a situation of overcrowding.
Lawyers were filing petitions for some remedy based on COVID-19 and the health risks of an incarcerated person, such as obesity, pregnancy, asthma and HIV, among others. The requests were “sometimes granted, sometimes denied,” Tomko said.
“The frustration now is the basis on which we used to ask for the release, maybe not being there because the governor’s order is really not in effect,” Tomko said of the decree which, between others, was overturned by the Michigan Supreme Court in October. “This groundwork, this foundation, we really don’t have the same footing as before.”
He said his office and the Michigan State Advocate’s Office had already filed about 70 petitions to get people released from prison for terms of one year or less.
Tomko said the prison population was around 900 inmates in the spring and then reduced to less than 300. Wickersham said officials began to see weekly increases from June. Since August, the prison has remained stable between 500 and 550 inmates, he said.
Tomko said the sheriff’s office is separating inmates as best it can in such close quarters, providing masks, quarantining them and performing additional testing.
Macomb County isn’t the only sheriff’s office or jail dealing with COVID-19.
About 40 inmates test positive for the virus and quarantined at the Oakland County Jail, Deputy Sheriff Mike McCabe said Tuesday.
“This number increases and decreases depending on when they are released, new arrests that are positive on entry or after bail or serving their sentence,” he said in an email.
The prison population was 702 people on Tuesday. It normally has 1,200 to 1,300 inmates, McCabe said.
More: Oakland County Wins Appeal in Inmate COVID-19 Pandemic Trial
He said all those booked into jail were quarantined and tested on Day 10, with results taking two to four days. McCabe said they only enter the general population after testing negative.
He said the prison lasted about three months without any inmate testing positive for the virus.
“This ‘wave’ hit us too,” he said.
McCabe said authorities have sent “nearly 60 letters to judges on potential releases given the health of a particular inmate who does not have a violent past and we are awaiting responses. A few have been released as a result. . “
In Wayne County, Sheriff Benny Napoleon remains hospitalized and on a ventilator on Tuesday to fight the virus, his daughter Tiffani Jackson said.
“There are highs. There are lows. There is nothing that concerns us at the moment,” she said, adding that Napoleon’s doctors are “still very optimistic and full of hope. just like us as a family ”.
More: Wayne County Sheriff Napoleon on a ventilator during the fight against COVID-19
Three dozen employees in the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office tested positive for the virus from Nov. 6 to 30, said Pageant Atterberry, director of communications. She said that since May, 96 inmates have tested positive for the virus.
Atterberry said as soon as people came to jail they were quarantined. A few days after the start of quarantine, they are tested. If they are negative for the swab test and the antibody test, they are released into the population, she said.
If an inmate tests positive on the swab test, they are quarantined for an additional 14 days until they test negative, Atterberry said. This continues every 14 days until a negative test comes back.
If they come back with a swab test negative and positive for antibodies, she said, the inmate is quarantined for 14 days and then sent to the general population.
Wayne County had 1,035 inmates on-site Tuesday at its three sites and 1,695 under electronic surveillance.
More: Wayne County Sheriff’s Office Second Deputy Dies From Coronavirus
No inmate died from the virus, Atterberry said, but the sheriff’s office killed a commanding officer and two deputies.
Contact Christina Hall: [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter: @challreporter.
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