LAS CRUCES – Lately there are two active cases of COVID-19 among the detained population at the Doa Ana County Detention Center and two cases of virus among detention officers.
The two positive cases of detainees entered the centre with the virus and lately are isolated, while the two detention officers are isolated in their homes.
“As the state count continues to fall, we have found that fewer and fewer inmates are positive. But we still receive them occasionally,” said Bryan Baker, acting director of the detention center.
Since the first public fitness emergency order issued through Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, there have been 141 cumulative cases of COVID-19 among the detained population and 21 cases among detention officers, he said.
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A total of 3,087 detainees, both state and federal, have been registered in the detention center since the early 1940s, a minimum from the same past year.
When Lujan Grisham enacted strict measures in the state of New Mexico, Baker, along with other county officials, followed a plan on April 1 that quarantined all new inmates for 14 days in the same cells located in specially dedicated quarantine day rooms.
“We are taking every precaution imaginable, ” he said. ” Since the beginning of July, all my staff and visitors to the facility have been dressed in an N95 mask or KN95 mask and it turns out that this has eliminated virtually all officers. -Transmission of the officer. And we’ve never had an incident where we thought an officer gave it to a prisoner. “
Agents running in El Paso have a tendency to test positive more often, Baker said, but those positives are the idea of coming from his network, because El Paso has more cases.
From now on, all quarantine regulations will remain in place until there is a vaccine and fitness officials say quarantine can be lifted.
“We stick to what the New Mexico Department of Public Health tells us we need to stick to, and we go further,” Baker said.
There are designated spaces in the center for positive cases and 10 contract trackers trained within the facility that paint to identify who has come into contact with a user who has tested positive for COVID-19.
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In an earlier article on COVID-19 protocols at the detention center, Baker stated that most of the positive cases they saw at the center occurred when an inmate was exposed to someone during his 14-day quarantine.
Detention centre staff have been screened weekly since May and the entire detainee has been screened several times since.
“It seems to be as much under control as anyone can have in this environment. We have a very low positivity rate, which is lower than the positivity rate in Ana County in general,” Baker said. after two weeks, our positivity rate has fallen from about 0. 4 to 0. 8%, while the county, the last time they updated it on nmDOH’s website, claimed that we had a 5. 2% positivity rate in the county. “
In September, the detention centre revisited the families.
Bethany Freudenthal can be contacted at bfreudenthal@lcsun-news. com, 575-541-5449 or bethanyfreuden1 on Twitter.
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