Officials monitoring COVID-19 outbreak at Lake County jail

The Lake County sheriff's office is motoring a COVID-19 outbreak within the county jail, after 14 inmates and seven correctional officers tested positive for the virus over the weekend and Monday, officials said.

All of those who tested positive are experiencing mild symptoms, the sheriff's office said, and nobody has required hospitalization.

Because of the outbreak, jail officials have implemented several new mitigation protocols, including cancellation of all inmate programming, keeping inmates within their assigned units except when approved by command staff, and limiting professional visits to unit visiting booths, rather than face to face.

Sheriff's officials said everyone housed in the jail has had opportunities to receive a COVID-19 vaccine and, to date, more than 280 doses have been administered to inmates. The current jail population is 451 inmates.

The new protocols are in addition to long-standing measures at the jail, such as rapid testing for all new inmates, who are then placed on a 10-day hold before moving to the general population; a medical segregation area for inmates with mild illness symptoms; requiring inmates to eat in their cells and wear a mask when outside their cells; and regular testing of inmates and jail staff.