Jail had COVID outbreak last month
By Terry Murry on Wednesday, April 21st, 2021 in Columbia Basin News More Top Stories
PENDLETON – The Umatilla County Jail experienced a COVID-19 outbreak last month, after successfully fending off that occurrence for a year. Sheriff Terry Rowan says it started when two inmates who were due to be transferred to the Oregon Department of Corrections tested positive.
“They tested the other inmates that were housed with them, and in the end we had 18 positive cases all at once,” Rowan said.
The sheriff said if those two hadn’t been tested, the outbreak could have spread even further before personnel became aware.
“All of them were asymptomatic, expressed no symptoms whatsoever,” he said. “Within a week, most all of those individuals were taken off quarantine or shipped on to their destination.”
Rowan said that the jail isolated those with COVID-19 and would house only those people arrested for major crimes, dropping the population from about 170 down to 145.
