Sonoma County Jail has gone on lockdown in response to a recent outbreak of COVID-19 among staff and inmates, according to Sonoma County Sheriff's Office spokesman Sgt. Juan Valencia.
192 people booked inside the Sonoma County Main Adult Detention Facility are now in quarantine, with no one able to leave, except in the case of a medical emergency, and no visitors are allowed in to two of the housing units.
There are 690 inmates in 13 housing units at the facility in total.
The rest of the jail is operating as normal, and allowing visitors in for no contact visitation through glass.
As of Wednesday, 10 facility employees and a dozen inmates have tested positive for the virus, Valencia told KCBS Radio in an interview.
This comes as the number of COVID-19 cases has been skyrocketing around the world and in the Bay Area. San Francisco recently reached the third-highest transmission rate in California.
But it's still unclear from where the outbreak originated, he said.
79% of prison staff have been vaccinated against COVID-19, said Valencia.
While employees have been monitoring the outbreak on their own so far, public health officials are arriving at the jail on Wednesday to provide additional support.
In the meantime, activities within the facility are continuing unfettered, but any outside activities have been suspended.
Around the same time as the lockdown was announced, one of the inmates was found dead.
On Tuesday, at 4:48 p.m., Benjamin Vega, 43, of Rohnert Park, was discovered hanging in his single jail cell. Despite medical intervention, Vega was pronounced dead at the scene, according to a Sonoma County Sheriff's statement.
Vega was booked into the Sonoma County Jail on Jan. 1 for domestic violence, false imprisonment, criminal threats, assault with a deadly weapon, robbery and committing a felony while out on bail.
The Sheriff's Office is investigating the incident while the Marin County Coroner’s Office is also conducting its own independent investigation.
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