ATASCOSA, Texas – A Bexar County Sheriff’s Office dispatcher who tested positive for COVID-19 last week taught a class to cadets at the agency’s training academy late last month. More than half of that cadet class has now tested positive for the deadly virus, BCSO officials confirmed to KSAT on Wednesday.
The course took place March 31 at the BCSO training academy on Herring Road in far southwest Bexar County, according to a BCSO spokesperson. Twenty cadets attended.
The dispatcher, who tested positive for the virus on April 10, was asymptomatic at the time of the class but was sent home the same day after revealing that a member of their household was sick, officials confirmed.
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As of Wednesday afternoon, 13 of the 20 members of Class 2020-Alpha have now contracted the virus.
BCSO officials previously said that a possible exposure at the county jail was minimized because the entire class was placed on leave after a single cadet tested positive.
Other cadet classes are currently taking place but they have been split up into groups of eight and are not allowed to intermingle, BCSO officials said Wednesday.
Cadets are also wearing personal protective equipment at all times, the sheriff’s office said.
Judge Nelson Wolff on Sunday, after revealing a maintenance worker and University Health System nurse assigned to the jail had tested positive for COVID-19, called the results “very dangerous signs” about the potential spread of the virus and that officials would come up with a “good, strong coordinated plan” to address it.
The comment came during Wolff’s daily media briefing alongside San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg.
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Wolff spent several minutes talking about temporary policies put in place at the jail, including limiting outside access and sanitizing and cleaning cells daily.
A county spokeswoman on Wednesday referred the KSAT 12 Defenders back to Wolff’s comments, even though they took place three days ago and were not made in reference to the agency’s training academy.
The county also declined to make Seth Mitchell, special assistant to the county judge, available for an interview Wednesday.
The spokeswoman did concede that Mitchell has been working with BCSO, in a support capacity, in regards to efforts to slow the spread of the virus.