Castaic: Two groups of inmates at a Los Angeles County jail tried to infect themselves with the coronavirus by sharing water and a mask, and within two weeks 30 prisoners tested positive, authorities said on Monday.
Sheriff Alex Villanueva at a briefing showed surveillance videos from two dormitory units at the North County Correctional Facility in Castaic.
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The footage captured inmates in one unit sharing a container of hot water and others in a second unit sniffing a mask.
The sheriff said that inmates used hot water to try to raise their temperatures just before a nurse checked them. An elevated temperature is a symptom of coronavirus.
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Villanueva said that inmates mistakenly believed that if they were infected they would be freed.
None of the 30 inmates required critical care when they were sick, though some had moderate symptoms, said Bruce Chase, the department’s assistant sheriff of custody operations. No prisoners within the county's jail system - the largest in the country - have died from the virus.
Nationwide prisons have become flashpoints in the pandemic. More than 25,000 inmates have been infected and about 350 have died across the country - from Rikers Island in New York City to federal, state, and local lockups coast to coast, according to an unofficial tally kept by the COVID-19 Behind Bars Data Project run by the University of California, Los Angeles' School of Law (UCLA Law).
In California, five inmates in a state prison in San Bernardino County have died from COVID-19 complications and outbreaks at federal penitentiaries at Terminal Island in San Pedro and Lompoc are considered among the country's worst.
But in Los Angeles County in mid-April, the North County Correctional Facility didn't have a single COVID-19 case. Days later, nine inmates were flagged as being potentially sick, Chase said.
AP
