As of Friday afternoon, Governor Greg Abbott issued an executive order to suspend in-person visitation at all county and municipal jails in Texas in hopes of helping stop the spread of COVID-19.
The order does not affect the attorneys of the inmates or religious leaders.
Abbott stated in his written statement that “Jails have shown to be the highly susceptible to COVID-19 surges which is why we are focused on containing any potential hot spots and preventing spread both within jails and the community, I encourage jails to utilize virtual visitations strategies to allow for visitations in a way that protects both staff and the inmate population.”
Six-hundred and ren images and two-hundred and eighteen inmates have active cases of COVID-19 in the jails according to the Texas Commission on Jail Standards’ latest data, which was updated Thursday.
Over four thousand inmates have been quarantined or isolated, while one thousand and three-hundred sixty-three images await testing. The commission says that six hundred and forty-two inmates had been quarantined due to pending test results. Four inmates have lost their lives due to COVID-19.
There have been there hundred and thirty-three total cases of COVID-19 among the inmates of the Dallas County Jails, this of more than four percent of the county’s total population, according to the statistic of the county that was released on Tuesday.
A lawsuit was filed Thursday, in hopes of releasing the inmates who are especially prone to catching the Coronavirus, the attorney stated that 1800 of the five thousand inmates have underlying health issues and that it is near impossible for them to maintain proper social distancing from one another and, that there do not have enough supplies such as soap and masks.
A separate lawsuit was also filed separately in the Federal Court seeking the release of Dallas County inmates, a judge denied this last month.
