Lake County jail visits suspended because of surging local COVID-19 cases

Lake County jail authorities have again suspended in-person visits for inmates because of an uptick in local cases of COVID-19.

Instead of seeing friends and family in person, inmates will be able to visit using jail-provided video devices, according to Lake County sheriff's office spokesman Sgt. Christopher Covelli. Inmates will still be allowed to have in-person meetings with attorneys and other professionals.

In-person visits were initially suspended in March but were brought back on July 6, Covelli said. Also in March, 40 nonviolent inmates who had fewer than 45 days remaining on their sentences were released in an effort to prevent a COVID-19 outbreak.

Covelli said Thursday there are no plans for a similar release now.

Eight jail employees and three inmates have tested positive for COVID-19 since early November, Covelli said. Those cases bring the total number of positive tests among jail staffers and contractors to 26 and the total number of cases among inmates to 11 since March.

"The three additional inmates had COVID upon their admission to the jail, and our mitigation protocols prevented it from spreading to the rest of the inmate population," Covelli said.

The jail's policy is to separate new inmates in a section of the jail dubbed the "quarantine pod" for two weeks.

The first Lake County jail inmate to test positive for COVID-19 was a pregnant woman in her 30s in mid-April. In September, officials reported that after testing about 600 inmates, employees and contractors - the jail's largest COVID-19 screening effort to date - three people had tested positive.

The current jail population is about 506 inmates; the jail has the capacity for 740.