73 Have Contracted COVID-19 at the Bexar County Jail



The Bexar County Jail.
The Bexar County Jail.

73 and Counting

73 people who are either incarcerated in, working for or working with the Bexar County jail have tested positive for the coronavirus. Just three days ago we wrote about the increase in infections and at that time the number of infected people was 60. Within three days the total rose by 13 people. According to the KSAT article,

” 36 inmates have tested positive for the virus, 31 deputies, 1 video visitation civilian employee, one dispatcher, one laundry tech, one facilities maintenance employee, one UHS nurse and one Bexar County fleet maintenance employee.”

With the numbers obviously increasing, it’s crazy to think that Gov. Abbott is planning on opening up Texas businesses. Any detention facility is a petri dish that allows disease to spread quickly. It’s the nature of the beast. Jails are not set up to give each person their own living space. Beds are frequently within arms distance of each other. People who appear to be fine will be released and it won’t be until later that we find out they were asymptomatic or that they were in the early stages of the disease, when they were contagious but symptoms hadn’t manifested yet. It doesn’t matter which. Both will infect others. That’s part of how it will spread even further into the community. Employees will also add to the spread. And open businesses will help it to spread even more.

Low Numbers Not the Real Story

Just so you understand, these Bexar County jail numbers, while going up, may still seem low but it’s doubtful they are telling the full story. The Salazar administration is only testing people who they think may have come into contact with an infected person. No one else is being tested. But in an Ohio prison, Marion Correctional Institution, 73% of the inmates have tested positive for the coronavirus. That is 1,828 inmates. And there are an additional 109 staff members who are infected. From the NPR article,

“Because we are testing everyone — including those who are not showing symptoms — we are getting positive test results on individuals who otherwise would have never been tested because they were asymptomatic,” the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction says.

I don’t know if the numbers at the Bexar County Jail are comparable but I have no doubt the numbers are much higher than 73 people. We can’t get a true picture without testing.

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