Arizona jail to stop accepting nonviolent offenders due to COVID outbreak

PHOENIX — One Arizona jail will temporarily stop accepting nonviolent offenders and self surrenders due to a recent COVID outbreak, officials said recently.

The changes will allow the Coconino County Detention Facility to keep inmates who are positive and symptomatic separated from those not positive or symptomatic while also allowing the facility to quarantine new inmates for 10 days, according to a press release last Thursday.

No date to resume normal operations has been set.

The CCDF medical department began mass testing Thursday after 44 inmates and 11 detention staff tested positive for COVID-19, the release said.

The facility said it expects more tests to come back positive from the mass testing.

The population at the jail has reached an 80% vaccination rate, and most staff have treated inmates testing positive with only three requiring hospitalizations, the release said.

Previously, the jail restricted physical contact from the public in an effort to limit the number of positive cases.

Since March 2020, the detention facility has reported 308 positive COVID-19 cases for inmates and 103 for detention staff, the release said.

At times since the start of the pandemic, officials at CCDF were reporting no positive tests for inmates or staff for months.

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