California prisons on soft lockdown; prison nurses must work overtime, or else

California has launched a 14-day statewide soft lockdown in its prisons amid the coronavirus and told exhausted prison nurses that if they’re ordered to work 16-hour shifts, they must comply or face reprisal. “For the next 14 days,” CDCR Secretary Ralph Diaz said in a prepared statement, “there are going to be a lot of changes within our institutions, but we do it with the overall health and safety of all those who live and work in them, and the health and safety of the public, at the forefront.” The prison system, which had mandated use of N95 masks only around confirmed COVID-19 patients, has relaxed restrictions and will allow prison workers to bring in their own masks and face coverings for more widespread use. Lawyers with the Prison Law Office filed a renewed emergency motion Wednesday evening, seeking court-ordered prison reductions, whether through mass releases, use of alternative housing, “home confinement, electronic monitoring and medical furlough.” Prison administrators “cannot wait for disaster to strike or the numbers to climb higher,” the motion states. “Their failure to take appropriate remedial steps constitutes deliberate indifference to the profound risk of harm to medically vulnerable people in their custody.” The prison infection rate as of Wednesday had climbed to 81 cases, 19 of them inmates and 62 prison workers, including two nurses from the state medical prison near Stockton.