A Gregg County Sheriff's Office employee on Thursday walks back to a squad car after taking a Gregg County Jail inmate who tested positive for COVID-19 to Smith County Jail, where the inmate was to be housed in a "negative pressure cell."

A Gregg County Jail inmate tested positive for COVID-19 and was transferred to Smith County on Thursday, the same day health officials said the disease had entered a new, more contagious phase in Gregg County.

Announcing the first two of what by Thursday night was six new confirmed cases in Gregg County, Health Authority Dr. Lewis Browne said community spread of the disease had been found.

“We’re at a different level of alertness and a different level of contagion,” he said, noting previous cases had been travel related, meaning the coronavirus was contacted elsewhere. Now it is being spread among members of the community. “It just means that people are going to need to be even more diligent as far as restricting their movements.”

The six in Gregg County were among 29 new cases announced Thursday across Northeast Texas. Smith County also added six cases.

Inmate diagnosis

Thursday evening, the Gregg County inmate who tested positive was transferred to the Smith County Jail to be held in a special cell that prevents spread of disease.

Sheriff Maxey Cerliano said in a statement the inmate, who was not identified, had recently required outside medical treatment multiple times a week.

Cerliano said the inmate is jailed on a “serious violent felony” charge awaiting trial. He declined to release the inmate’s gender or say if he’d been in the North Jail or South Jail.

In the past two weeks, Cerliano said, the inmate has needed hospitalizations in addition to those related to treatment for his original medical condition. It was not immediately clear if the inmate had remained in the hospital. Cerliano did not say which hospital treated the inmate.

In Smith County, the inmate will be housed in a “negative pressure cell,” a room that has a ventilation system using negative pressure to allow air to flow into the room but not out of it. That prevents the spread of illness from the cell.

The Gregg County Jail, which was occupied in 1982, does not have such facilities. The Smith County Jail was built about five years ago.

The inmate move was the result of a plan worked out by Cerliano and Smith County Sheriff Larry Smith a few weeks ago as the coronavirus pandemic began to have an impact in the region. The Gregg County inmate who tested positive put the first step of the plan in place.

“Since we had two negative pressure cells, we would take the first two,” Smith said Thursday night. “They (the Gregg County Jail) are cleaning out a facility where we can keep Smith County and Gregg County inmates so they don’t infect the rest of their inmates and ours.”

Cerliano said the staff handling the inmate are outfitted in personal protective equipment. Gregg County has shared the necessary protective equipment with Smith County so the staff at both facilities would be protected according to guidelines issued by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In Gregg County, Cerliano said, the sheriff’s office has begun a medical screening process for staff in addition to a regular medical screening for new inmates. Also, high-traffic communal inmate areas are sanitized every two hours to protect inmates and staff.

No jail staff have been diagnosed with COVID-19, though Cerliano said one jail staff member exhibited symptoms and was tested. The test came back negative.

Increase in cases

The six new cases in Gregg County brought the county’s total to 13, and had officials calling for residents to heed county and state orders to stay home and observe social distancing.

“People need to be really more cautious to trying to distance yourself,” Browne said.

He also stressed the importance of washing hands with soap and warm water often. It’s important to do more than just splash soap and water then rinse. To remove the virus, hands must be washed for at least 20 seconds.

“Rinsing it off decreases the amount of viruses and bacteria on our body,” he said. “At least 20 seconds of that is more effective of killing that … because it pokes holes in the bacteria.”

Another six cases also were announced in Smith County, making its total 53.

Two of the new patients in Smith County were at home in isolation, according to the Northeast Texas Public Health District, and the other four were hospitalized. All six people were exposed to COVID-19 via community spread.

In Gregg County, of three new cases announced earlier in the day, one patient was hospitalized and the other two were in isolation, NET Health said. Five of the cases were travel-related, while one was exposed due to community spread.

Panola County Judge LeeAnn Jones said her county had received notification of another confirmed case, making the total four. She said the patient was quarantined at home.

Rusk County added another, as well, to make seven cases there.

Across Northeast Texas, according to the News-Journal’s tally, there were 144 cases by Thursday night, up 25 percent from 129 a day earlier.

In Louisiana

Across the border in Louisiana, confirmed cases of COVID-19 continued to soar in the Shreveport area.

According to the daily report from the Louisiana Department of Health, Caddo Parish had 336 cases Thursday, up about 23% from 298 on Wednesday. Fifteen residents have died.

Bossier Parish had 87 cases, up from 75 on Wednesday. The parish recorded its second COVID-19-related death.

Statewide, Louisiana’s confirmed number of cases spiked 42% higher Thursday as a backlog of test results poured in and confirmed Gov. John Bel Edwards’ message that the virus’s footprint across the state is much wider than limited testing has been able to document so far.

Nearly 9,200 Louisianans have tested positive for the virus that causes COVID-19, the state health department said, a jump of more than 2,700 confirmed cases from a day earlier and the largest single-day increase reported so far.

The total of reported cases in Northeast Texas by Thursday evening was at least 144, up from 115 a day earlier. Here’s a look at totals reported Wednesday, and changes from Tuesday’s reports:

Anderson: 1

Angelina: 8 (+3)

Bowie: 9, 1 death

Camp: 1

Cass: 4

Cherokee: 6 (+1)

Franklin: 1

Gregg: 13 (+6)

Harrison: 5, 1 death

Henderson: 1

Hopkins: 3

Lamar: 3

Morris: 1

Nacogdoches: 8 (+4 over two days)

Panola: 4 (+1)

Rusk: 7 (+1)

Shelby: 8 (+6)

Smith: 53 (+6) 1 death

Titus: 1 (+1)

Upshur: 3

Van Zandt: 3, 1 death

Wood: 1

Total: 144, 4 deaths

Sources: Texas Department of State Health Services, Northeast Texas Public Health District, local officials