File Photo (Lake County Jail) | Photo: Google Street View.

Three more people at the Lake County jail have tested positive for COVID-19 after the jail tested approximately 600 inmates and staff members last week.

The Lake County Sheriff’s Office and Lake County Health Department said that the 600 people tested included inmates, correctional employees, facilities staff, and contractors who entered the jail facility last week.

Results indicate that one inmate, one correctional officer and one contractual employee tested positive. All three were asymptomatic.

The inmate was placed in medical isolation and the correctional officer and contractual employee are isolating at home, according to Lake County Sheriff Spokesman Sgt. Christopher Covelli.

The inmate who was positive was a newly remanded inmate being held in the jail’s previously established 14-day quarantine pod.

Follow-up testing at the jail will occur next week for all staff and for 28 inmates who had close contact with the inmate that tested positive, Covelli said.

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These inmates will also be required to quarantine for another 14 days to prevent the virus from spreading in the jail.

“As I have said many times, it is an absolute priority of mine to keep our employees and jail inmates safe. We implemented a very robust mitigation program at the onset of COVID-19, and the hard work continues to pay off. We continue doing everything we can to keep COVID-19 out of our jail,” Sheriff John Idleburg said.

“Identifying only three cases among 600 people tested demonstrates the effectiveness of our collaborative effort with the Sheriff’s Office and the mitigation measures that they put in place this spring,” said Mark Pfister, Executive Director at the Lake County Health Department.

“Our next step is increasing education efforts for staff and contractors at the jail to reinforce the message that even interactions with your most trusted friends, co-workers and family members can lead to COVID-19 infection, and that can have serious ramifications when providing services in a congregate facility,” Pfister said.

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