I honestly don’t understand why the Federal Bureau of Prisons is being so obstinate about the COVID-19 outbreak in the Lompoc Federal Correctional Institute (FCI) and U.S. Penitentiary (USP). Or why they had to put two different facilities out there with different acronyms and treat them differently as well!
It’s so confusing. Is it a prison, a penitentiary, a correctional institution? Is it all of the above? What do I call it?
At least the Bureau of Prisons—also known as the BOP (Another GD acronym!)—is trying to test every inmate at the prison. Well, that’s just what Santa Barbara County (Or should I say SBC?) officials thought. But really, the BOP is only testing all of the FCI’s prisoners, not the USP, according to Salud Carbajal, who’s a USR in the HOR for D24.
So, while we may have semi-accurate numbers for the FCI, we definitely don’t have them in the USP. The county’s reported number of positive cases at the prison (that word covers both facilities) is different than what the bureau’s been reporting. The numbers have been wildly different for weeks with the county giving the public a more accurate and much higher count than the BOP—but at least the bureau is consistently shady and not transparent. Just how we like our federal agencies! Not!
SBC says two prison inmates have died due to the virus. The BOP’s website stated that zero had died as of May 12. As far as we know, there are almost 900 positive inmate cases in the FCI (with 20 recovered) and only 21 (with 93 recovered) in the USP, which holds about 400 more inmates. However, the BOP isn’t “conducting universal testing” at the penitentiary because “the number of positive cases have significantly reduced at the USP,” according to BOP spokesperson Justin Long.
But if the BOP tested everybody, there would probably be a lot more positive cases than 20. Then you would know who to isolate so another round of infections doesn’t spread! See what I did there? Logic. The BOP should try it.
The BOP also asked SBC and the LVMC (that’s Lompoc Valley Medical Center for all you crazy kids out there) not to release the number of inmates being treated in the hospital and the ICU (Another acronym!). And for some daft reason—even though the BOP isn’t telling local officials what they want to know—the county acquiesced! What?
“The Bureau of Prisons does not want me to convey that information,” SBC Public Health Officer Dr. Henning Ansorg told the press in response to questions about it.
Why? Why? Why?
The public has a right to know!
Luckily, the Sun has an inside line to the scuttlebutt flowing through Carbajal’s office. OK, fine, I’m not that cool. It’s not a rumor, because he told us. His staff talked to BOP staff and apparently there are “12 to 14” (Which isn’t an exact number, now is it?) hospitalized inmates and one who’s in the ICU.
OK, so how’s that 50- to 100-bed field hospital coming along, BOP? Inquiring minds want to know, including Carbajal, including the county, including me.
The canary is sick of not knowing things a canary ought to know. Send comments to canary@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in May 14-21, 2020.