An inmate at Bexar County Jail and 12 employees of the Sheriff’s Office have tested positive for the coronavirus, officials said Friday.

The 29-year-old man is the first inmate to contract the virus. Arrested last month on a family violence warrant, he reported feeling shortness of breath Thursday, officials said, and the medical staff determined that he had a fever over 100 degrees.

Because the inmate displayed symptoms consistent with COVID-19, he was placed in a negative pressure cell, pending test results, which came back positive. It is unclear how the inmate contracted the illness, a spokeswoman said Friday.

Before he was tested, the inmate was housed in two cellblocks with 116 other inmates, officials say. Each cellblock holds a maximum of 64 people.

“This is obviously very concerning,” Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff said. “Previously, after the deputy tested positive for the coronavirus, we were concerned. But those deputies were assigned to a lockdown unit. Now, it’s an inmate in a cellblock. That’s much more worrisome.”

So far, Wolff said, no other inmates from the two cellblocks have shown any symptoms consistent with the coronavirus. Those units have been shut down, and all inmates confined to those living areas are having their temperatures checked twice daily.

Sheriff Javier Salazar has asked that everyone confined to that cellblock be tested for COVID-19, Wolff said, though it is not clear whether that request will be granted.

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Later Friday, Salazar said the 12 employees who tested positive include a communications dispatcher and 11 deputies who graduated earlier this month from the academy.

The dispatcher likely contracted the virus from a family member and has been self-monitoring at home since March 31. Co-workers are believed to be at low risk of contracting the virus, officials said.

It is also believed that additional detention staff and the inmate population are at low risk of contracting the virus because the new jailers that tested positive Friday were placed on leave early on.

In total, 15 employees at the Sheriff’s Office have tested positive for COVID-19, including a video visitation civilian employee. A maintenance employee who works at the detention facility also tested positive, but he works for the county, not the Sheriff’s Office.

To further prevent the spread of the virus, all inmates — roughly 3,000 at the jail, many of whom are awaiting trial — have been given face masks to wear at all times.

Time limits have been placed on the use of the jail’s day room.

“Additionally, all areas the inmate had contact with have been fully sanitized and disinfected, which includes the living units the inmate had access to,” the spokeswoman said.

The deputies who worked in the units where the inmate was housed are believed to be at low risk of contracting the virus, officials said. So far, no deputies have any symptoms. As a precaution, the deputies were placed on leave while they self-monitor for symptoms.

In each instance, officials have said they have taken precautions to prevent the spread of the virus. Earlier this week, after the maintenance worker tested positive, all nonpublic jail facilities were temporarily shut down to conduct a thorough decontamination.

As of Thursday, 60 Sheriff’s Office employees — 56 deputies and four civilians — have been placed on leave and told to self-quarantine after possibly being exposed to the virus. Among them are 20 deputies who graduated this month from the training academy with the deputy who later tested positive.

About 18 deputies are scheduled to return to work Monday, a spokesman said.

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Jails and prisons, known for their unsanitary and crowded living conditions, have emerged as hotbeds for spreading the virus, and officials across the country are grappling with how to cut inmate populations.

“You get one sick inmate in a jail, before you know it, it’s 100 or 300 really quick. Those people are going to get back into society on a daily basis,” Salazar said in March. “And they’ve been sitting in this cesspool of disease, in a pandemic situation like this.”

At last count, the Sheriff’s Office had reduced the jail population by roughly 770 inmates to about 3,100, primarily by releasing nonviolent misdemeanor offenders and sending felons to prisons.

In March, after jail officials in several large cities, including San Antonio, began lowering jail populations, Gov. Greg Abbott banned the release of inmates accused or convicted of violent felonies unless they post bail.

Criminal justice reform advocates have criticized that move, saying it discriminates against poor defendants who don’t have access to cash, putting them at increased risk of contracting the virus. Judges have the power to release defendants on personal recognizance bonds, even for violent offenses.

That was the case for the Bexar County inmate who tested positive this week. In November, he was arrested on a charge of assault bodily injury married, a misdemeanor, and released under a personal recognizance bond, meaning he did not have to pay but agreed to meet certain conditions set by the judge.

But on March 11, after being arrested on charges of violating a protective order and drug possession, a judge increased his bail. He could have been released if he paid 10 percent, about $500, through a bondsman.

The man was likely not eligible for re-release under Salazar’s push to decrease the jail population because he is accused of a violent offense.

Two separate legal cases, filed by civil rights attorneys, have challenged the constitutionality of Abbott’s order, saying it takes away a judge’s power to make case-by-case decisions.

“The harms of this order are not abstract: Poor people are being detained pretrial with no way to escape a possible jail outbreak,” Amanda Woog, executive director of the Texas Fair Defense Project, said in a statement announcing one lawsuit. “The governor has overstepped his legal authority, and this is causing significant harm on the ground.”

Bexar County District Attorney Joe Gonzales also questioned the constitutionality of Abbott’s order, during a recent panel hosted by the Texas Organizing Project, a statewide advocacy group.

“It’s a violation of the constitution’s separation of powers doctrine,” Gonzales said. “That’s why we have separation of powers — because the executive branch cannot control what the judiciary does, just like the president can’t control how the Supreme Court is going to act.”

In response to the order, Gonzales said he has instructed prosecutors in his office to continue reviewing cases that might be eligible for personal recognizance bonds and to set low bails for new cases — sometimes as low as $10, in effect having the same outcome.

“That way, we can continue to facilitate the release of some of those individuals,” Gonzales said.

Emilie Eaton is a criminal justice reporter in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. To read more from Emilie, become a subscriber. eeaton@express-news.net | Twitter: @emilieeaton