Testing help may soon be on the way for Texas county jails.

Public health experts have said county jails are at high risk amid the coronavirus pandemic because of their confined spaces and revolving population. In Dallas County, the jail has been identified as a leading location for community spread, behind long-term care facilities like nursing homes.

Seth Christensen, spokesperson for the Texas Division of Emergency Management, said county jails will be eligible to request more tests as part of the state’s $45 million initiative to expand testing for hotspots such as nursing homes and industrial and correctional facilities.

Dallas County Jail has reported 237 positive COVID-19 cases among inmates, about 5% of its population, and 44 cases among jailers as of Thursday.

Jail testing procedures in the state have been a patchwork of decisions made at the county level. Jails, which are typically subject to state regulatory oversight, have not been given orders on how to handle the pandemic, critics say.

“Only through testing can you make informed decisions,” Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez told The Dallas Morning News. “Having more guidance on this stuff would be helpful. I think different agencies are figuring it out on their own.”

Brandon Wood, executive director of the Texas Commission on Jail Standards, said logistics and the testing process were still being discussed. Wood said the state will begin the expanded testing in two counties, but declined to disclose which jails.

It’s unclear when or if Dallas County will get more mass testing. Dallas County Sheriff Marian Brown did not respond to a request seeking comment Friday.

Jail conditions

Medical care and treatment at the Dallas County Jail came under scrutiny following its outbreak, which was made public March 25. Two weeks later, several inmates filed a lawsuit against Brown. The inmates filed a motion to have a federal judge grant their release, but the judge denied the request April 27.

Dallas County Jail, the second largest in the state, has fewer COVID-19 cases than Harris and Bexar counties’ facilities, which could be attributed to lower testing.

Officials in Harris County have already moved forward in testing.

For the two largest county jails in the state, Harris and Dallas, their testing protocols appear to be largely different, according to data reported to the Texas Commission on Jail Standards. Harris reported four times more pending tests for jailers compared to Dallas.

Harris County also conducted hundreds of COVID-19 tests among inmates, which led to a surge in cases. About 8% of the jail’s inmate population tested positive. On Thursday, Harris County reported 662 inmates and 104 jailers had tested positive for the coronavirus. The jail reported its first COVID-19-related inmate death on May 6.

Gonzalez said he went outside of his local health department to purchase more tests because he wanted to expand testing. The increased testing led to a surge of reported cases among inmates and jailers, but helped officials improve quarantine measures.

Most of the inmates, Gonzalez said, were asymptomatic but came back with positive results.

Across the country, COVID-19 testing resources have been scarce. The same is true for the Dallas County Jail, according to federal court testimony from April 24.

Pat Jones, a vice president at Parkland Memorial Hospital, said at that time that the jail was conducting about 25 tests per day and had about six days of tests on hand.

So far this month, testing at the jail has slowed down.

April Foran, a spokeswoman for Parkland Memorial Hospital, said the jail was averaging 11 tests per day as of May 1. It’s unclear why the number decreased. Foran declined to comment further.

Diana Claitor, executive director of the Texas Jail Project, an advocacy group for incarcerated people in Texas county jails, said transparency has worsened during the pandemic.

“There’s no overall policy or direction on how county jails are to cope with the testing question,” Claitor said.

Mass confusion

Although prison and jail are often used interchangeably, their populations are different.

Unlike prison, the majority of people in jail have not been convicted of a crime, often being held pretrial because they can’t afford bail.

Bo Wallace, 27, is one of those nearly 4,800 detainees in the Dallas County Jail. He was charged with possession of a controlled substance.

Brown has asked local agencies to stop arresting people for low-level offenses to help reduce the jail population amid the pandemic.

Wallace was arrested Feb. 22, according to an arrest warrant, about two weeks before Dallas County had its first case of coronavirus.

Dallas police officers were doing a stakeout in Northeast Dallas when they saw Wallace asleep in his car, records show. When they approached him and searched the car, they found heroin and a small amount of marijuana.

Wallace’s bail was set at $14,500. His mother, Angela Evangelist, chose to not bail him out, hoping tough love and staying in jail could better keep him sober than going back to the streets.

But that was before the pandemic.

His mother said he became a trustee at the jail, giving him more privileges for good behavior. He routinely helps run the kitchen, serving food to detainees.

But Evangelist describes his detention in the jail in disarray as the outbreak happened. As cases of COVID-19 increased at the jail, Evangelist panicked when her son stopped calling home.

The issues echo similar stories made in federal court by inmates who had fallen ill and their loved ones.

“We were trying to call and find out if he is alive? Is he dead? Is he sick?” Evangelist said.

Days later, she said she learned he was placed in solitary confinement in the West Tower of the jail.

“He was pretty emotionally distraught,” she said. “He could barely put sentences together.”

At one point, she said, he didn’t have toilet paper for two days. During his first quarantine, he told her he did not have clean clothes for 10 days.

“I don’t expect it to be grand — it is jail — but that is ridiculous,” she said.

Wallace was placed in quarantine again in a different tower, Evangelist said her son told her, but has never been tested.

Brown has declined multiple interview requests with The News amid the pandemic. Her only public comments came at the March 25 news conference.

Evangelist said she hoped for more transparency from Brown. Instead each night, she googled “Dallas County COVID-19” to see what a search would return.

Evangelist said she hopes the sheriff remembers that people incarcerated have mothers, wives and family who want to know about what really is happening at the jail during the pandemic.

“That is still my baby, no matter what,” Evangelist said.