BANGOR, Maine — Two inmates at the Penobscot County Jail have tested positive for COVID-19, marking the facility's first cases among inmates.
In addition, Sheriff Troy Morton said the Maine CDC has confirmed four positive cases and seven presumptive positive cases of COVID-19 among staff and individuals associated with the jail.
Morton said in a release Friday that both inmates who tested positive were in quarantine and were tested before released into the general population.
The news comes on the heels of the Maine CDC announcing the outbreak among staff members earlier this week.
Morton said they are working with the Maine CDC on the outbreak and said personal protective equipment, screening, testing, and quarantine practices all remain in place.
"We brought in outside cleaners many months ago to clean and do additional cleaning in high traffic areas of the jail," Morton said. "Particularly the intake areas which is a high traffic area and the court area and things like that. So again, we continue to do things of knowing that you know it only takes one case, and as good of procedures as you can have, it can happen to almost any facility."
Morton said county jails can not turn down arrests brought into the jail so they have to send inmates to another jail to keep the population down enough to help with quarantining.
"It’s a dangerous thing for us in this facility because we don’t have the space with the numbers of people to isolate," Morton said. "Only because the counts down a little bit it’s created a few places where we are able to make sure that isolation is needed so we have situations we have a couple of blocks that make it very helpful for us to watch individuals that are incarcerated without actually interacting every 15 minutes."
Maine CDC Director Dr. Nirav Shah said Thursday that the Maine CDC is working with jail officials to make sure that they have everything they need to help take care of the situation.