HANCOCK COUNTY — The Hancock County Jail has provided inmates the option of getting a COVID-19 vaccine after an outbreak at the jail last week.
Officials started administering the shots on Friday, April 30. The Hancock County Health Department is supervising the effort at the jail, where some 25 inmates were initially identified as testing positive for the novel coronavirus.
Capt. Robert Harris, public information officer with the sheriff’s department, said a large number of the 132 inmates in the jail opted to receive the shot. The vaccine will be available to anyone, including people when they are brought into the facility.
“It’s completely voluntary, their option” Harris said. “No one is being forced to take it if they don’t want it, but a lot of inmates were interested in getting it.”
The outbreak of COVID-19 in the county jail looks to be holding steady at around 33 inmates. No new cases have been reported so far this week, Harris said. Jailers have set up two quarantine areas for inmates who have tested positive, one in the main jail and one in the former community corrections facility now known as Jail II. That area was set up as an auxiliary space to hold inmates and aid COVID-related distancing.
“Right now, it looks like we’ve got about half and half the number of inmates in each jail who have tested positive for the virus,” Harris said.
None of the inmates who have tested positive for the virus have had to be transported to the hospital but instead are being treated by the in-house medical staff. Symptoms have included mild fevers, body aches and some chills, Harris said.
Harris noted the department is reevaluating the COVID situation at the jail daily but will continue to make decisions on getting back to more standard arrest and booking procedures on a week-by-week basis.
“We’ll certainly wait until we have no more confirmed cases in the jail and then kind of go from there,” Harris said.
Currently, no one at the sheriff’s department, including the jail staff, has tested positive for the virus since the outbreak started. Harris also wanted to reiterate to people who have relatives in the jail that the two quarantine blocks are in place and that those who are infected are being kept away from the general population. Harris said the only time the two groups of inmates were together was when the outbreak first started, but those found to be infected were quickly separated.
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Here’s a look at the latest COVID-19 data for Hancock County:
13: Number of new cases reported on Tuesday, May 4.
8,204: Number of positive cases since March 2020.
139: Number of deaths from COVID-19. The most recent death was reported on April 10.
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