COVID Outbreak shuts down Hobby Unit

The William P. Hobby Women's State Prison Unit in Falls County was placed on a precautionary lockdown due to a COVID-19 outbreak last week. The entire unit will stay on lockdown until 14 days from the most recent positively diagnosed case. 

There were 282 active cases within the prison on Thursday, Oct 8. Of those, 264 were offenders and 18 were employees, according to a press release.

This spike in cases is a result of mass testing done by the TDCJ Strike Teams of all offenders and staff at that unit. Spokesperson Jeremy Desel told KCENTV that the jail has performed mass testing since May, totalling more than 200,000 tests administered.

Sept. 29 through Oct. 3 brought forth additional testing of more than 200 employees and more than 1,500 offenders. Results began to come back on Oct. 4 from preliminary tests. 

Thursday, there were 264 offenders who were in medical isolation, only 31 offenders of whom were symptomatic. The 18 employees who tested positive are in a two-week self-quarantine period.