9 Quezon City jail detainees positive for COVID

QUEZON CITY, Philippines — Barely a month after a Cabinet official claimed that jails are among the safest places during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, at least nine inmates from the Quezon City Jail tested positive for COVID-19.

Swab tests from the detainees and nine jail personnel assigned in Metro Manila came back positive, the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) said yesterday.

“We are now doing extensive contact tracing, we have a team assigned to it,” BJMP spokesperson Chief Inspector Xavier Solda said in a press briefing.

At least 40 detainees were transferred to the BJMP isolation facility in Payatas after they were considered to be in contact with a inmate who died from “possible COVID-19” last month.

Solda said with the newly released results, they now consider the detainee who died last March 25 as a COVID-19 case. No swab samples were taken from the detainee, who was immediately cremated.

The BJMP has also transferred vulnerable inmates, including the sick and elderly, from the congested Quezon City Jail to the Payatas isolation facility.

As for the COVID-positive BJMP personnel, Solda said they have been on isolation and lockdown since March 20.

Localized and random testing are being conducted at the Quezon City Jail, which currently houses 3,821 inmates.

The BJMP has yet to determine how the virus spread to the jail.

Last month, a paralegal officer of the jail tested positive for COVID-19 but Solda said she was assigned to court duty and was never in contact with inmates.

Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) spokesman Undersecretary Jonathan Malaya said that they are ready to provide personal protective equipment (PPE) sets to the BJMP.

The BJMP said it needs at least 100 PPEs immediately for the Quezon City Jail alone. The bureau has a total of 468 jails nationwide housing over 130,000 inmates, making the congestion rate reach 400 percent last year.

Last month, Interior Secretary Eduardo Año said detention cells are 100-percent safe from COVID-19 since all visitations have been suspended and all new inmates undergo mandatory quarantine.

BuCor unfazed

Meanwhile, Bureau of Corrections spokesman Gabriel Chaclag said the BuCor has “enough and effective safeguards” in place to prevent the spread of the virus.

The BuCor earlier suspended visitation and “paabot” privileges for inmates in the country’s seven penal colonies. Two of the colonies – the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) and the Correctional Institution for Women (CIW) – are in Metro Manila.

The penal colonies hold a total of 49,114 detainees as of January, well over its capacity of 11,981 detainees. This means the state prisons have an occupancy rate of 410 percent and a congestion rate of 310 percent.

The BuCor designated quarantine areas to hold inmates who manifest COVID-19 symptoms, Chaclag said.

He said inmates who show symptoms are isolated for three weeks and then sent back to their cells if they no longer show symptoms.

Prison personnel who show symptoms are subjected to home quarantine while health care personnel work in shifts.

Chaclag also thumbed down proposals to conduct mass testing of inmates, saying no one is showing “severe” symptoms.

“We do not see testing inmates yet. There is an algorithm in place. They should fall in the category (set by) the Department of Health,” he said.

“If people could donate (testing kits), then okay. But in the meantime, there is none,” he added.

Chaclag said there are nine inmates in Bilibid and 14 in the CIW who are under observation.

“We have no COVID-positive patients so far,” he said. – With Ralph Edwin Villanueva