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Three more COVID-19 patients were identified on Saturday, making for nine total active cases in Del Norte County.

Seven cases were identified through contact tracing and case investigation, Public Health Officer Dr. Warren Rehwaldt told the Wild Rivers Outpost on Monday. There is no connection between the current number of active COVID-19 cases and the Fourth of July holiday, he said.

“We won’t see any results from that probably at the earliest will be about two weeks,” he said. “I heard there were reports of a lot of people at South Beach on the Fourth. WE were just trying to make sure if you’re going to be outdoors, enjoy the outdoors — outdoors is better than indoors, no question — but spread out. Stand back and put your mask on. If people were doing that, hopefully we won’t have too much of a problem.”

Over the past three weeks, four people have sought care on their own, got tested and were told they were positive for the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, Rehwaldt said. Most of the seven COVID-19 patients identified through contact tracing were household contacts from one of the hospitalized patient, he said.

Of the nine total active COVID-19 patients, one person is in the hospital, according to the county’s COVID-19 Information Hub. Del Norte County has had a total of 58 confirmed COVID-19 cases and two total hospitalizations.

Meanwhile, with the number of infected inmates at San Quentin State Prison at 1,381 currently, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has directed its institutions to activate their incident command posts to address any COVID-19 case, according to CDCR spokeswoman Dana Simas.

“The ICP is a central location where CDCR operations and (California Correctional Health Care Services) health care and public health experts monitor information, prepare for known and unknown events and exchange information centrally in order to make decisions and provide guidance quickly,” Simas said.

This includes Pelican Bay State Prison, which has invited staff with the Del Norte Emergency Operations Center to communicate with the institution via a liaison, Rehwaldt said.

There are currently zero COVID-19 cases among Pelican Bay’s inmate population, according to CDCR’s inmate COVID-19 patient tracker tool. Statewide, there have been a total of 5,346 COVID-19 inmate cases, with 2,419 active in-custody cases currently, according to CDCR. There have been 28 inmate deaths from COVID-19, according to CDCR’s web page.

Three San Quentin inmates died over the weekend due to potential complications from COVID-19, according to a CDCR COVID-19 update.

Among the prison’s staff, two people self-reported testing positive for COVID-19 in May. Those two employees are back at work, according to CDCR’s COVID-19 employee status web page.

Rehwaldt said he’s gotten to know the prison’s medical staff well over the last few months, speaking with its chief officer last week via email. During Del Norte County’s spike in COVID-19 cases in May, he said, the Public Health Branch was communicating with Pelican Bay State Prison medical personnel roughly every other day.

“We wanted to keep them in the loop and wanted to find out if anything was showing up in the inmate population,” Rehwaldt said. “I’m not too worried about the transfers as much as I’m worried about staff. And I don’t want to blame staff or anything because I think everybody is using as much precaution as they can muster.”

The California Correctional Health Care Services Patient Movement Matrix guides inmate transportation throughout CDCR. Under this protocol, inmates must answer COVID-19 screening questions, be tested and quarantine for 14 days when they arrive at a reception center. Inmates who refuse to be tested for the disease at the reception center are addressed on a case by case basis, according to the matrix.

Prisoners must answer COVID-19 screening questions again and be re-tested before transferring from the reception center to a CDCR institution, according to the matrix. If they screen and test negative, there are no housing restrictions when they arrive at an institution.

If an inmate refuses to test, but has screened negative for COVID-19, they may be moved by special transport with staff using personal protective equipment to the receiving facility. ONce there, they must be placed on “orientation status” for 14 days.

CDCR is also in the process of requiring staff at its adult institutions statewide be tested for COVID-19. Baseline testing at all institutions is required to be completed by July 16, according to CDCR. Prior to July 1, staff have only been tested at institutions experiencing outbreaks, according to a CDCR staff memorandum.

For Rehwaldt, and the Del Norte Healthcare District, prison staff being infected by COVID-19 is a potential concern. Rehwaldt said though the outbreak at San Quentin was concerning, if it helps CDCR “get more serious about monitoring this, especially their own staff,” that’s a positive.

“I’ve said this before, the staff have a tough job because they really do have to take their jobs with a level of secrecy equivalent to an intelligence operation,” Rehwaldt said.

Meanwhile, according to Dr. Kevin Caldwell, chairman of the Del Norte Healthcare District, its latest letter to Governor Gavin Newsom regarding inmate transfers into and out of Pelican Bay State Prison has gained a response.

Speaking with the Outpost and KFUG Community News on Wednesday, Caldwell said he was contacted by Edwin Warford, California Emergency Services coordinator for Del Norte and Humboldt counties. Caldwell said Warford was very interested about inmate transfers.

“He was very animated about doing something,” Caldwell told the Outpost.

In response to a phone call, Warford directed the Outpost to the State Operations Center’s public information team. The SOC’s PIO team has not responded as of Monday.

The Healthcare District’s June 23 letter to Newsom’s office was its third attempt to bring its concerns about the prison to officials at the state level. Previous attempts included trying to get a restraining order against CDCR in March to stop inmate transfers.

The Healthcare District and Rehwaldt also sent a joint letter to the governor’s office in May.

Documents

• COVID Screening and Testing Matrix for Patient Movement

• CDCR Memorandum on COVID-19 Baseline testing

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