Months after an outbreak first being reported at Pitchess Detention Facility in Castaic, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is reporting no current confirmed COVID-19 cases within the three inmate populations housed there.
On June 22, Pitchess Detention Facility had reported at that point in time there were 64 asymptomatic positive patients in isolation at Pitchess Detention Center, North Facility and three asymptomatic positive patients at North County Correctional Facility. There were also 237 individuals in quarantine at PDC-North and 68 in quarantine at NCCF.
However, as of Jan. 29, LASD is reporting 0 confirmed cases at PDC-North, PDC-South, and North County Correctional Facility had one patient under investigation, but no confirmed cases, according to LASD website data.
Questions sent to the Sheriff’s Information Bureau about COVID-19 were directed to the LASD’s website. There a series of protocols are listed that LASD has been following since the pandemic began, including reducing the jail population, additional screening measures and cleaning housing facilities.
The originally high number of cases at the jail facility had significantly contributed to the Castaic region’s COVID-19 totals. And while those initial reports resulted in large leaps for the Castaic community’s totals, which are still reflected in their overall total since the pandemic began, the sharp increase has eventually dissipated.
NCCF, PDC-North and PDC-South have seen a cumulative total of 1,149 quarantined inmates.
In all of LASD’s Custody Division, which includes a total of seven different facilities and a daily average population of 14,863, since the onset of the pandemic, there have been 3,740 inmates who tested positive for COVID-19 and 13 inmates were COVID-19 positive at the time of death, although COVID was not necessarily a contributing factor.
As of Friday, 934 sworn deputies throughout LASD’s various precincts are quarantined, seven are currently high risk, and 3,168 have returned to work. A reported 1,826 sworn deputies have contracted COVID-19 since the inception of the pandemic.
