Mecklenburg jail nurse tests positive for COVID-19; exposure minimal, sheriff says
A nurse who treated young inmates at the Mecklenburg County Jail has tested positive for COVID-19, the sheriff’s office announced Thursday.
The nurse, according to the office statement, last reported for work at the jail’s juvenile detention center on March 22 after being on personal leave for almost three weeks.
She reported feeling ill 20 minutes after undergoing the jail’s screening procedures and was sent home to self-quarantine. She was tested for COVID-19 the next day.
The sheriff’s office said it learned late Wednesday afternoon that the test had come back positive.
The sheriff’s statement said the infected nurse did not see any patients during her last day in the jail but briefly had been in contact with another nurse of Wellpath, the jail’s healthcare provider. That nurse has been placed in self-quarantine and also has been tested for COVID-19.
A Charlotte attorney who has called on the sheriff, police and the courts to reduce the jail population until the pandemic recedes, said the nurse’s case proves further steps are needed to protect inmates.
“If the sheriff’s department truly cares for the well being of people in their custody, they will begin extensive testing and screening procedures,” Tim Emry said.
According to the sheriff’s statement, Wellpath has isolated nine people inside the jail who exhibited possible COVID-19 symptoms. All have been tested. In the seven cases in which results have come back, all have been negative, the statement said.
Meanwhile, four inmates and staff members have tested positive for the disease in North Carolina’s prisons.
Fears of an outbreak at the Mecklenburg jail have led judges and the legal community to take steps to reduce the jail population.
Lawyers with vulnerable clients being held at the jail also have gone back to court to ask that the inmates be temporarily placed on house arrest. Most of those requests have been denied.
Last week, Chief District Judge Elizabeth Trosch temporarily suspended arrests for most misdemeanors to reduce the flow of new inmates into the jail.
Emry, one of the leaders of a group highlighting the threat of a Covid-19 outbreak among inmates, said the nurse’s case “illustrates the unique danger and risk of spread in jails and prisons.”
“Even if (the nurse) did not come into contact with any inmates, she may have touched items that other colleagues or inmates touched,” he said.
“This causes an even greater sense of urgency to begin testing inmates ... and to reevaluate the need or public interest in detaining many of these people prior to any conviction or finding of guilt.”
Longtime Mecklenburg Public Defender said the community at large has a personal stake in the medical safety of the jail.
“Mecklenburg already predicts a shortage of respirators and ICU beds,” Tully said in an email Thursday to the Observer.
“When their loved one needs a respirator and/or ICU bed, they want those life-saving things available. Lowering the jail population increases the chance they will be.”
This story was originally published April 2, 2020 at 3:50 PM.
