111 inmates, 19 staff members test positive for COVID-19 in Lake County

LAKE COUNTY, Fla. — Lake County officials said 111 inmates and 19 staff members have tested positive for COVID-19.

A day after learning Lake County Master Deputy Lynn Jones died while in quarantine, Eyewitness News found out five other deputies are in a hospital, including a deputy who is on life support along with his wife.

All other deputies who tested positive are quarantining.

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As for positive inmates, “they are all confined to individual cells and they are not able to free roam outside of those cells,” an official said. After 14 days, inmates are moved into a second pod “where they’re still all housed together but at that point they can get out of the cell and intermingle somewhat as they recover.”

Inmates can’t return to the general population until they have two negative tests.

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Official said they believe the outbreak may have started with a female inmate who was brought in this month or among staff members working in one of the pods.

“Her symptoms started showing right about the same time frame as the work pod,” an official said. “I think it was 11 or 12 of them that started showing symptoms at one point.”

Other measures the Sheriff’s Office put into place include releasing 42 inmates to the lower jail population, quarantining all new inmates for 14 days and it stopped transporting inmates to or from other facilities, only accepting new arrests.

Cox Media Group