COVID-19 outbreak at Bordeaux prison infects 75, prompts new lockdown

Bordeaux Prison is seen on Tuesday morning, March 24, 2015. (Ryan Remiorz / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

Inmates at Bordeaux prison in Montreal are dealing with a major COVID-19 outbreak, with 75 people infected as of Monday morning.

No employees have been infected yet, said Louise Quintin, a spokesperson for Quebec's Ministry of Public Security.

Extra infection control measures have been put in place on the recommendation of the regional public health directorate.

The prison is applying mass testing, doing extra monitoring of symptoms, pausing transfers to other detention facilities and enforcing constant mask-wearing, except when inmates are in cells.

The prison is also isolating inmates in cells, serving meals in cells, and suspending programs and activities, Quintin said.

That system is changing from day to day depending on public health recommendations, she said.

This is just the latest of a series of crises in the pandemic at Bordeaux, which had major outbreaks in 2020 and a staffing shortage so severe this fall that inmates were locked in their cells for a full day to enable staff to do a search.

The 2020 outbreak led to a hunger strike, with inmates trying to draw attention to what they said were unliveable conditions in their lockdown.

Bordeaux is a provincial prison. The province doesn't keep an updated online list of COVID-19 rates at its prison so it's unclear if there are smaller outbreaks elsewhere.

At federal prisons in Quebec, there are only eight active cases of the virus, all of them at the Regional Reception Centre in Ste-Annes-des-Plaines, near St. Jerome.