Infection rates in the Harris County Jail continue to rise, with 49 inmates and 65 employees testing positive for the coronavirus as of Tuesday morning, according to the Harris County Sheriff’s Office.

Another 56 people have symptoms and are awaiting test results, spokesman Jason Spencer said. And 1,758 inmates are in observational quarantine but are showing no symptoms of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. There are about 7,500 inmates in the jail, and hundreds of people come in and out every day.

Since the start of the pandemic, Harris County criminal justice officials have said infections at the jail were unavoidable and sought to reduce the population at the jail to combat the spread of COVID-19. While cases continue to climb in the lockup, three separate orders over bail practices during the pandemic — from the state, county judge and county judiciary — have complicated the ability for widespread releases.

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Sheriff Ed Gonzalez has been calling for inmate releases for weeks, saying the disease could not only trigger a health crisis at the jail but could spill into the community, infecting people outside the jail and putting more pressure on medical facilities caring for the sick.

The sheriff’s office said it has issued masks to all jail employees and inmates and released the following measures it is taking to try to slow the spread of COVID-19:

• Early isolation of arrestees with COVID-19 symptoms entering the jail at intake

• Masking all arrestees at JPC jail intake

• 7-day “buffer isolation” of all new inmates prior to releasing to general population

• Social distancing of inmates (as much as possible), detention staff, and medical staff, even in break rooms

• Increased availability of soap, water, and hand sanitizer

• Increased frequency of facility sanitization efforts

• Increased cleaning supplies provided for inmate use

• Inmate education at the Joint Processing Center screening on mask wearing, social distancing, and frequent hand washing

• Suspended fees for inmate sick call requests

• Aggressive quarantining of a tank when an inmate is moved to isolation for COVID 19 symptoms

• Daily temperature screenings of worker inmates prior to leaving their tanks

• Examining ways to reduce inmate movement

• Replacing live meetings to conference calls

• Holding court hearings via video

• Implementing video inmate visitation

• Temperature screening all inmates released from jail

• Homeless screening all inmates leaving jail for hotel or shelter placement

• Screening homeless inmates with COVID-19 symptoms and placing them COVID-19 hotels

• Advising all inmates to go home and self-quarantine for 14 days after they leave jail

• All inmates are wearing masks upon jail discharge and have COVID-19 discharge instructions and resources

samantha.ketterer@chron.com