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12 Miami-Dade COs test positive for COVID-19

Officials said nearly 100 corrections officers have been tested through test sites for first responders

By David J. Neal, Charles Rabin and David Ovalle
Miami Herald

MIAMI — Twelve Miami-Dade corrections employees have now tested positive for the coronavirus, as have two inmates in the Broward County jail system, officials said Thursday.

The Miami-Dade jail system confirmed that 12 corrections officers and civilian staff members have tested positive, up from three who had earlier been diagnosed with the highly contagious respiratory virus. Nearly 100 corrections officers have been tested through test sites for first-responders, the department said.

As the pandemic has paralyzed the globe, advocates for jail and prison reform have pleaded for detention facilities to be thinned out to avoid the spread of the virus in such close quarters. For the past three weeks, South Florida judges and police officers have altered their normal approach to arrests and bonds and county jail population has fallen.

In the last two days, two inmates in Broward County jail have tested positive for COVID-19, the Broward Sheriff’s Office announced Thursday afternoon.

No details are known yet on the positive test that BSO learned about Thursday. Wednesday’s positive test confirmed the novel coronavirus has reached BSO’s North Broward Bureau, where the inmate had been since his March arrest. The parts of that jail the inmate has been in have been put on quarantine.

“Staff who were in contact with the inmate have been notified and are advised to self-isolate, self-monitor and contact the Department of Health for further instructions,” BSO said. “The arresting officer, who works at a police department in Broward County, has been notified as well.”

The sheriff’s office says the inmate was “medically screened” upon arrest on an unspecified March day, but was asymptomatic.

Asked what he was medically screened for, a BSO spokeswoman said that wasn’t immediately clear. She also couldn’t say what “routine screening” he went through on Tuesday, during which he refused a medical test BSO says was unrelated to the coronavirus.

But when he wouldn’t take that test, he was taken to a hospital “for evaluation and screening,” where he was tested for COVID-19. That’s the test that came back positive.

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©2020 Miami Herald

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