DEL VALLE, Texas — As of Friday, 20 inmates at the Travis County Correctional Complex (TCCC) in Del Valle have tested positive for the coronavirus, the Travis County Sheriff's Office (TCSO) confirmed to KVUE Sunday.
The TCSO, which manages both the TCCC in Del Valle and the Travis County Jail (TCJ) in Downtown Austin, confirmed that, as of Friday, 20 inmates have tested positive at the TCCC in the past week. Those inmates were housed in Building 12 of the TCCC, which houses nearly 1,000 inmates.
TCSO Multimedia Information Specialist Jay Wiles told KVUE that the inmates who have tested positive have been moved to the Quarantine-Confirmed Positive unit at the TCJ, as opposed to the quarantine unit at the TCCC.
Wiles said that while nearly 1,000 inmates are housed in TCCC's Building 12, the building is broken into approximately 30 housing units. The 20 inmates who tested positive were housed in five of those 30 units.
Wiles said testing has been offered to the inmates who were housed in the same units as those that tested positive. Those inmates that may have been exposed remain in their housing units at the TCCC.
This is the first instance of COVID-19 community spread among Travis County's inmate population. As of Jan. 11, the jail system had had a total of 69 positive cases among inmates since late March, a roughly 10-month period.
Wiles said the new protocols put in place by the TCSO have been very efficient at preventing community spread until now, but there is ultimately no completely foolproof way to prevent community spread from happening.
Those protocols include quarantining inmates upon arrival for 10 to 14 days before they are moved to the general population. If an inmate is showing symptoms or refuses to answer certain CDC questions, they are held in quarantine until their symptoms subside, they test negative or until medical staff approves their transfer to the general population.
The TCSO said the quarantine unit is on a separate floor from all other inmates and all inmates held in quarantine are housed in single-occupancy cells and seen twice a day by medical professionals. The TCSO implemented its COVID-19 protocols on March 30.
Wiles said that there are approximately 1,800 inmates in Travis County's entire jail system as of Sunday, including both the Del Valle and downtown facilities.
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