Janelle Irwin Taylor
Officials at the Pinellas County Jail are screening all new inmates for coronavirus.
Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday said he expects more cases in the state now that two people in Hillsborough and Manatee counties tested presumptively positive for the virus.
Jail officials started testing inmates last week. The process includes asking inmates during the booking process about recent travel and possible symptoms.
Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri told the Tampa Bay Times they have not yet seen any potential red flags during that screening process.
The jail already has an infectious disease nurse on staff to track updates.
The screening process is not being carried out at Safe Harbor, which is on the jail’s campus. That facility is not secure and people can come and go as they please.
“That’s something we’re gonna have to deal with on a symptomatic basis just like anyone on the street,” Gualtieri told the Times.
Pasco County jail is collecting questionnaires from inmates and sizing them for face masks if necessary.
U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams warned people this week to stop buying face masks.
“Seriously people — STOP BUYING MASKS!” Adams tweeted over the weekend. “They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if health care providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!”
Precautions were put into place before any confirmed coronavirus cases were reported in Florida. Since then two patients have tested “presumptively positive” for the COVID-19 virus.
One of those cases occurred in Hillsborough County in a patient who had recently traveled to Italy where several cases have been reported. The other patient is in Manatee County and did not have any recent travel to high-risk countries.
The latest update from the World Health Organization shows 87,137 are infected in 58 countries worldwide, with 1,739 new infections being reported. Most of those are in China. So far, 2,873 have died, with 104 deaths outside China.
