A COVID-19 outbreak in San Quentin prison has had a ripple effect all over California's correctional facilities.
At our neighboring California Correctional Center, the total number of confirmed cases reached nearly 450 with 223 currently active and 212 reported recoveries as of Thursday.
Some say negligence could have driven the spike in cases.
Located only an hour and a half from Reno, California Correctional Center or CCC is a place 3669 inmates call home and also one of California's hotspots for COVID-19.
Misty Arteaga, wife to an inmate says, things were going well until inmates from San Quentin were transferred to CCC.
"Just getting those couple inmates from San Quentin just blew up our prison, insanely," she says.
It was a move that went against health officials advice.
In a declaration of Emergency signed by Dr. Kenneth Korver with the Public Health Office, it states the transfer of inmates on June 8th without testing or quarantining them once they arrived, went against what was recommended bu the Lassen County Health Officer on March 20th.
Days after the transfer, three of those inmates tested positive for COVID-19. On the 25th of June, over 76 inmates were already positive for the virus.
The same document says: "The CDCR has proven the inability to confine the COVID-19 pandemic, allowed it to spread to two institutions within Lassen County and demonstrated an indifference of the impacts to the limited rural health care system within Lassen county,"
Banner Lassen Medical Center is the primary facility for care in the county, but with a total of 25 beds and 7 ventilators, they say transferring inmates to Reno isn't out of question.
"We do not have an ICU here in the facility," says Banner Lassen Medical Center CEO, Sandy Dugger.
Since most of those transfers go to Renown, we asked them for their action plan, but they haven't provided us with one yet.
CCC is not only home to inmates, but a workplace for many staff and correction officers, some of which have no choice but to show up everyday.
They worry the masks given to them, made of inmates clothing, won't be enough to protect them from the virus.
Many of those who contributed to the story, but didn't want to go on camera, say not following guidelines, a lack of PPE and communication has gotten the facility where it is right now.
"There is not a lot of information to families of what's going on, very limited, and I know everyone is worried about what is being said out there, just trying to cover their butts, but we are freaking out, " says Arteaga.
