BRADENTON, Fla. — Manatee County Jail remains under a partial lockdown over rising COVID-19 cases among both inmates and staff. Officials with the Sheriff's Office said the lockdown will be in place for the foreseeable future as a preventative measure in hopes of limiting the spread.
"A lot of jails in the State of Florida are dealing with a similar situation, and we are just going to hope that limiting that movement around is going to help keep those numbers from getting any higher," said Randy Warren, PIO, Manatee County Sheriff's Office.
The lockdown means inmates would remain in their cells except for 6 to 8 hours in the day. During that time they would be allowed to come out for activities but in small, rotating groups. While they are out of their cell during the lockdown, inmates could take showers, eat, use the common areas, exercise and use various facilities.
Warren said around 103 inmates at the county jail in Palmetto are being quarantined after testing positive. Most of them are asymptomatic according to Warren except for 2 inmates who are hospitalized.
19 detention staff members are also either quarantined or away from the building due to exposure. In total, more than 30 staff across the agency are positive and out sick. While this represents around 8 percent of the people under the Sheriff's watch and employ, this is the largest number of cases at a time since testing began at the onset of the pandemic in March last year.
"We believe it is quite reflective what we are seeing out in the community and a lot of jails, schools and places where there are lots of people are dealing with this right now," Warren said.
The jail is also quarantining new inmates for a period of 14 days and offering them vaccines before they are integrated into the general population.
So far more than 550 have gotten their first vaccine dose while around 240 were fully vaccinated, according to Warren.
"We are having the inmates wear a mask at all times when they are in direct contact with other inmates and for what that's worth it's going to help limit some of that spread," he said.
Employees are also wearing masks when they are in contact with inmates. The partial lockdown would not affect the offsite Video Visitation Center which would continue to operate as normal.