California’s prison system is forcing Sacramento-area correctional officers and mental health care nurses to transfer to San Quentin State Prison, the site of the system’s largest COVID-19 outbreak.

The mental health care nurses are worried for their safety and they fear they could carry the virus back to the institutions where they normally work, including prisons in Folsom and Ione, when they are finished at San Quentin, said Eric Soto, president of the California Association of Psychiatric Technicians.

A transfer of 121 inmates to San Quentin from a prison in Chino in May sparked an outbreak that has engulfed a third of inmates there and sickened 205 workers, according to Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation data.

“Our primary concern is the safety and well-being of our members,” Soto said. “But second, it’s going to lead to more of our members getting infected, spreading to more inmates. We’re going to end up having it spread like wildfires in these prisons.”

Mule Creek State Prison in Ione has no reported COVID-19 cases, while California State Prison — Sacramento, in Folsom, has three active cases, according to the corrections department’s online tracker.

At least two psychiatric technicians from Mule Creek and more than four from Folsom have been ordered to transfer to San Quentin, according to Soto.

Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokeswoman Dana Simas said in an email that the department is transferring the workers to fill vacant posts.

“The increased staff resources will greatly contribute to the institution’s ability to assign staff to specific areas on a consistent basis and limit staff movement between housing units,” Simas said in the email.

The assignments will last 30 days, and the state will provide lodging, Simas said.

Workers will be tested every two weeks at San Quentin, she said. After their deployments, they’ll wait seven days and then will be tested again. Then they’ll wait for the results before returning to work, if negative, Simas said.

During the times they’re waiting to be tested and waiting for results, they’ll either telework or be placed on administrative time off, which is paid, Simas said in the email.

The department, which has been under fire for its handling of the virus, announced plans Friday to release about 8,000 inmates early between now and the end of August.

Gov. Gavin Newsom has criticized the decision to transfer inmates from Chino. “That decision created the chain of events that we are now addressing and dealing with,” he said a press conference this week.

On Monday, the federal receiver who oversees medical care in California prisons replaced the corrections system’s top medical officer. criticizing the decision to transfer inmates to San Quentin.

The psychiatric technicians’ union has been warning the corrections department since the pandemic began about dangers of transfers without extensive precautions, Soto said.

The union has been asking for a policy on transfers and has been trying to get more information on how the transfers would work. The union only received guidance from the corrections department on the waiting periods and testing protocols on Friday afternoon, after an inquiry from The Bee, Soto said.

The California Correctional Peace Officers Association also has struggled to get clear directives from the department.

“During this crisis, correctional officers are experiencing increased stress and anxiety at work,” union president Glen Stailey said in an emailed statement. “The department has issued conflicting and sometimes confusing guidelines that created dysfunction and outright failure at some institutions.”

The corrections department updated its policy for inmate transfers in June, after the Chino transfer, to require that prisoners test negative for COVID-19 within seven days of a transfer.

A transfer of three inmates to California Correctional Center in Susanville from San Quentin preceded an outbreak that has infected 222 inmates and eight workers, according to Lassen County officials. Local leaders fear the virus could spread to the community in Lassen County, which has had a low infection rate.

Workers are still struggling to get personal protective equipment such as masks and gloves, Soto said. The psychiatric technicians union has been trying to get the department to take the simple step of posting signs in areas of the prisons with inmates who have tested positive.

The correctional officers’ union took the step of supplying equipment to its members members around the state, Stailey said in his emailed statement.

Simas, the corrections department spokeswoman, said in an email that “tens of thousands of additional pieces of PPE have been sent to San Quentin and distributed to both inmates and staff and strict guidelines have been provided mandating their use while on institution grounds.”

This story was updated at 9:45 a.m. on Saturday, July 11 to correct that federal receiver overseeing prison medical care replaced the system’s medical officer, not Gov. Gavin Newsom.

This story was originally published July 11, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "California prison workers forced to transfer to San Quentin as coronavirus outbreak rages."