April 20, 2020 — A former inmate who turned up in Ukiah with COVID-19 after being exposed to the virus in prison is now in isolation in a motel room. He is being monitored by Public Health via telephone and the Mendocino County Probation Department with an ankle bracelet, according to Lt. Shannon Barney of the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office. Barney is also manager of the Mendocino County Emergency Operations Center.
On Friday, Mendocino County officials learned that the fifth case of COVID-19 had arrived in Ukiah, after being released from the California Institution for Men in Chino. The former inmate remains asymptomatic and was not tested while he was incarcerated. Lindsay Peak, writing for the Ukiah Daily Journal, shared a statement from the California Department of Corrections saying that the former inmate was asked if he had any symptoms and his temperature was taken. He was released on April 8th after a one-day quarantine due to a known exposure to the virus. On April 9th, he called his probation officer in Stanislaus County from Ukiah, where he was staying in a mobile home park with an aunt. The aunt is in quarantine in her residence, and she, too, is being monitored by Public Health.
The Stanislaus County sheriff sent a memo from their health department to the Mendocino County sheriff about the former inmate’s presence here and his exposure to the virus in the prison, which is experiencing an outbreak among inmates and staff. He was tested on the 16th, and on Friday the 17th, his test came back positive.
Barney reported that the process of tracing the former inmate’s contacts has begun, but, because he was tested so recently, the process “is still relatively young.”