The Davidson County Sheriff’s Office is monitoring a coronavirus cluster at a minimum-security jail on Harding Place.
DCSO learned Tuesday morning that 48 men at the Correctional Development Center have tested positive for the virus. They, along with about 50 other inmates, had already been placed in separate housing.
The Metro Public Health Department will now test all 502 inmates and 100 staff at the men’s facility.
Up to this point, DCSO has been testing inmates on a case-by-case basis. But the latest outbreak more than triples the number of people in custody who have contracted the virus since the start of the pandemic.
As of yesterday, only 22 inmates had tested positive for the coronavirus, and all had recovered. Four employees had recently tested positive, while 11 who had previously gotten sick had since returned to work.
Sheriff Daron Hall has worked with the public defender and law enforcement officials to decrease the jail population, in order to reduce the risk of a widespread outbreak. His goal was to house fewer than 1,000 people; 955 men are currently in DCSO custody.
However, the recent opening of the new Downtown Detention Center has increased the overall population a bit, because the sheriff’s office is now also housing women who had been temporarily incarcerated in a privately run facility. With 171 women now under DCSO’s watch, the total local jail population stands at 1,126.
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