The number of COVID-19 cases at the Lompoc Federal Correctional Complex continued to climb Tuesday, putting the outbreak in third place among Bureau of Prisons sites nationally. Meanwhile, union representatives expressed safety concerns.
Inmates at the U.S. Penitentiary who have tested positive for the disease caused by novel coronavirus now number 29, up from 23 Monday.
Additionally, six staff members at the facility have tested positive, an increase of one.
BOP officials said the cases were confined inside the USP and were not at the nearby Federal Correctional Institution.
Across the nation, the Bureau of Prisons reported 241 federal inmates and 73 BOP staff have tested positive for COVID-19. A day earlier, the agency said 193 inmates and 63 staff tested positive.
Eight federal inmates, none at Lompoc, have died, but no staff deaths were attributed to COVID-19, according to the BOP.
Some 34 BOP facilities and six Residential Re-entry Centers (RRCs) have been affected by the disease, with North Carolina and Louisiana prisons leading the list ahead of Lompoc.
Santa Barbara County Public Health Department staff has started including the federal inmate numbers in their tally after initially saying they weren’t incorporated.
On Tuesday, the countywide tally reached 218 confirmed cases, 26 more than Monday. Lompoc Valley had 55 cases.
American Federation of Government Employees, the union representing prison staff, filed a complaint with the Department of Labor contending that the BOP and Department of Veterans Affairs have violated Occupational Safety and Health Administration laws.
The union complaint was filed March 31 after Lompoc federal prison had already logged at least one case.
“The federal government is failing to do everything it can to protect workers who are on the front lines of this health-care crisis, and in some cases it is willfully doing the opposite – exposing not only workers but vulnerable populations to this deadly virus,” AFGE National President Everett Kelley said. “These actions and inactions are inexcusable and are literally endangering people’s lives.”
Both agencies have directed staff who have come in contact with or been in close proximity to individuals who have shown symptoms of the virus to report to work without regard to the 14-day self-quarantine guidelines issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, AFGE’s complaint contends.
The complaint also said prison management failed to minimize contact within recreation areas, education areas and counseling/treatment rooms, “resulting in multiple inmates and staff coming in dangerously close contact with each other after potentially being exposed to the virus.”
A federal lawsuit also contends workers should receive hazardous duty pay and environmental differential pay for working during a pandemic.
In an April 5 social media post, local union leaders announced the prison planned to implement 12-hour shifts, meaning longer days “but significantly, if any, less mandatory overtime.”
Personal protective equipment “is still being provided to staff who request it,” the union said, adding further guidance was expected.
However, a BOP spokeswoman told Noozhawk that the agency has issued surgical masks to everyone – staff and inmates – in the federal prisons, but did not spell out when that occurred.
“Going forward, Federal Prison Industries factories have begun production on cloth masks for our staff and inmate population, non-surgical medical gowns for medical facilities, and packaging hand sanitizer for use within the bureau and other agencies,” BOP spokeswoman Sue Allison said.
“We will distribute the cloth masks as they are produced to preserve surgical masks for quarantine and screening purposes with the goal being, consistent with CDC guidance, to limit transmission of coronavirus by ‘asymptomatic’ or ‘pre-symptomatic’ persons when social distancing cannot be achieved,” she added.
The day of the complaint’s filing, BOP announced plans to boost its measures to the fifth phase of its COVID-19 Action Plan.
Lompoc, like other federal prisons, has suspended visits, but increased inmate telephone system time to 500 minutes per month.
BOP also has increased home confinement by over 40 percent since March and is continuing to aggressively screen all potential inmates for home confinement.
The BOP’s spokeswoman said it has launched a nationwide 24-hour support line for all staff, offering an outlet for staff to anonymously discuss concerns, receive support and engage in problem solving.
“We are deeply concerned for the health and welfare of those inmates who are entrusted to our care, and for our staff, their families, and the communities we live and work in. It is our highest priority to continue to do everything we can to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 in our facilities,” Allison said.
— Noozhawk North County editor Janene Scully can be reached at jscully@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.