SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Outbreaks are underway at several state prisons among both inmates and staff, data from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation show, amid a broader surge of COVID-19 spreading across California and nationwide.
Prisons reported nearly 1,500 new inmate COVID-19 cases between May 1 and May 29, an almost 20-fold increase compared to just 75 infections reported over the preceding four weeks, according to a CDCR online data tracker.
About 470 recent inmate cases were considered active as of Wednesday morning. That remains far below the 9,600 active cases reported at the peak of winter’s omicron wave, but the recent caseload still represents the second-largest surge since vaccines rolled out in early 2021.
