Two Keys jail deputies and one clerk of the court staffer test positive for COVID-19
Two Florida Keys corrections deputies tested positive Thursday for the novel coronavirus, according to the Department of Health.
The cases are the first for the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office, which managed to keep its three corrections facilities free of COVID-19 throughout the monthslong crisis.
The two officers live in Miami-Dade County, which remains a COVID-19 hot spot, said Bob Eadie, administrator for the Florida Department of Health in Monroe County.
Adam Linhardt, spokesman for the sheriff’s office, said since the agency was made aware of the results, it has begun testing all the other deputies who work the same shift. Results should start coming back late Thursday and early Friday.
“Once we get the results back, we’ll know the scope of the issue,” he said.
Inmates are tested before they enter the jail and their temperatures are taken. If any of the other deputies test positive, the sheriff’s office and Department of Health will begin testing current inmates.
The deputies work in the Key West jail, are roommates in Homestead and carpool into work together. One of them reported to his superiors earlier this week that he was around someone in Miami-Dade County who may have had COVID-19.
The sheriff’s office ordered both of them to get tested and not report for duty. The positive results came back Wednesday night, Linhardt said.
“Neither has set foot in the facility” since the one deputy said he may have been exposed, Linhardt said.
The sheriff’s office is working with the Department of Health to track anyone within law enforcement or the jail who the deputies may have come into contact with recently, Linhardt said.
Along with the step-up in testing, the sheriff’s office is also requiring all inmates to wear masks when they are out of their cells. The exception is when they are eating in the dining area.
“Everywhere else, they are wearing it,” Linhardt said.
Jail staff is also disinfecting the facility in Key West, as well as the other jail in Plantation Key, three times a day. The sheriff’s office also has a jail in the Middle Keys city of Marathon, which closed in March to be able to better prevent inmates and staff from becoming infected.
The sheriff’s office wasn’t the only government agency impacted this week by COVID-19.
An employee with the Monroe County Clerk of the Circuit Court also tested positive for the coronavirus, Eadie said.
The staffer was checking into the Lower Keys Medical Center for a “totally unrelated” health issue. Hospital policy requires patients to be tested for COIVID-19 prior to being admitted, and the person turned out to be positive, Eadie said.
The employee works at the Key West office on Whitehead Street, which will be closed until Tuesday morning out of caution, Eadie said.
Since the Keys lifted its two checkpoints leading into the island chain on June 1, Monroe County has seen a small increase in COVID-19 cases. In the days surrounding the reopening to visitors, the Department of Health reported about 109 cases in the island chain.
According to the Health Department’s latest figures, the county is up to 120 cases. The death toll due to the virus in the Keys remained steady at three since early May, but increased to four last week.
Eadie said he expected the numbers to go up when visitors were allowed back in, especially because cases in neighboring Miami-Dade and Broward counties remain high.
He remains cautiously optimistic the situation can stay under control in the Keys. However, he said people must continue wearing masks in public and try to keep maintaining social distancing.
He’s seeing mixed results when he’s out in public.
“Am I surprised? No. Am I concerned? Yes,” Eadie said. “I don’t want people to get complacent, and people are in a way. Wearing masks and maintaining social distancing and following the CDC guidelines are more important now than they ever were.”
With no vaccine on the immediate horizon, he said the precautions are necessary to make sure healthy people who may have COVID-19 don’t spread it to the more vulnerable population.
“How are we going to live in this world? The only way right now is to protect yourself and protect other people,” Eadie said.
