San Bernardino County Sheriff's Training Academy shut down after COVID-19 outbreak

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. (KABC) -- When the San Bernardino County sheriff's academy started in spring, obviously COVID-19 was a concern. You can see in sheriff's department video that everyone is wearing a mask.

"Their temperatures are taken every morning. There is also hand sanitizer made available to them. They're encouraged to continually wash their hands," said Jodi Miller with the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department.

But even with all of those precautions, there was an outbreak at the training academy.

It all happened last week. On Monday, two cadets showed symptoms. One tested positive, so the rest of the class - 160 cadets - were tested.

Of those, 33 have now tested positive. On Friday, the academy was suspended.

"The classes for now are suspended for two weeks at the training facility, but the trainees are continuing with their training at home, distant learning, while they're in self quarantine," Miller said.

None of them are hospitalized, none of them even have a fever and only a few have symptoms.

"The vast majority of them are asymptomatic and were quite surprised that they tested positive for COVID-19," Miller said.

Governments around the country are looking at ways to curb the spread of the deadly novel coronavirus. One way is to institute a shelter-in-place-order. But what does that mean and how does it work? We broke it down for you.