Sheriff, inmates have COVID-19 after Stone County jail outbreak. ‘The virus is real.’
A coronavirus outbreak has hit administrative staff, inmates and corrections officers at the Stone County jail, authorities there confirmed Thursday.
So far, jail Lt. Noelle Reynolds said, two inmates have tested positive for COVID-19 along with Sheriff Mike Farmer, an administrative assistant, the chief of security at the jail and other officers, bringing the total number of cases to 12.
Farmer reached out to a private firm, Vindicator Officers Solutions, to bring officers in to work alongside the remaining staff while the other officers and staff are out with the virus.
Farmer, 56, said Thursday it’s been eight weeks since he was first diagnosed with the virus, and still he has some issues with breathing.
During his battle with the virus, Farmer was hospitalized for several days because “I couldn’t catch my breath.”
Prior to catching the virus, Farmer said he took the threat seriously, but didn’t wear a mask at his office or in other areas where he thought he wasn’t going to be able to catch it.
“I took it serious when it first came out, but I didn’t know anybody that had it,” he said. “Then, at first, in your mind, you start to wonder if this is political. Today, I say, somebody may be using this virus for a political reason, but the virus is real.”
Having suffered with the virus himself and knowing other friends now that have lost their battle with COVID-19 “made a believer out of me.”
“Now, I’m scared for anybody that has it, my friends, my family, anyone,” he said. “Take it serious. I wore a mask before but now I wear it everywhere, even at the office.”
Farmer was among the first in his staff to test positive for the virus. His wife also suffered from same diagnosis but didn’t have as bad of a case and he did.
An outbreak at a South Mississippi jail first occurred at the George County Regional Correctional Facility in Lucedale, where 234 inmates tested positive for the virus, one of whom later died after testing positive for the virus.
The two Stone County inmates who tested positive, Reynolds said, are quarantined in individual lockdown cells away from other inmates.
Farmer, however, pointed out he has a limited number of individual cells, around 10.
And, he said, most state and federal prisoners, for example, are all housed in different zones of their own in the jail that are open and include beds for all those prisoners in that particular area.
“We are requiring all the inmates to wear masks and the guards and everyone else, but it’s hard to do the social distancing when we’ve got 50 people in just one zone,” he said.
No further testing has been conducted at the Stone County lockup because other prisoners have not showed any symptoms of the virus.
To help prevent the spread of the new coronavirus, the jail is being sanitized daily and the staff and inmates have their temperatures checked every morning.
In addition to prisoners, staff are required to wear masks, and inmates receive a new one every 15 days.
The jail usually has a staff of 26 officers.
On Thursday, Reynolds said the jail had a total population of 399 prisoners, that include state, federal and local inmates.
This story was originally published August 13, 2020 at 10:22 AM.
