COVID outbreak in Barren jail includes 63 inmates
Published 1:00 am Monday, September 21, 2020
GLASGOW – Sixty-three inmates at the Barren County Detention Center have tested positive for COVID-19.
Jailer Aaron Bennett issued a news release Saturday about the coronavirus outbreak. It was the second of two news releases the jailer has issued in a short period of time regarding COVID-19.
On Tuesday, he issued a news release that said two contract workers and one deputy jailer had tested positive for the coronavirus. By Wednesday, that number had grown to a total of 10 people – six deputy jailers and four contract workers – who had tested positive.
“What happened is as soon as we tested the deputies, obviously, we knew COVID was there. Our decision was to test all the inmates,” Bennett said Saturday. “COVID is kind of like the enemy. We had to locate the enemy. So, now we know where the COVID is so we started isolating each one of the residents who tested positive.”
The inmates’ symptoms range from cold to mild flu-like symptoms with headache and other aches.
“A majority of them aren’t even showing any symptoms,” he said.
The jailer and his staff worked with Barren County Judge-Executive Micheal Hale’s office, the Barren River District Health Department and Kentucky Department of Public Health on how best to handle the situation.
“We have 63 cases and we don’t want those 63 cases to turn into 200 cases. We want to nip it in the bud before it gets worse,” Bennett said.
The jail plans to continue with its testing and to talk to health department officials should anyone start to show worse symptoms, he said.
“I think we all know with COVID it can be something as simple as a sniffle and a sore throat to ventilators and any and everything in between. We are going to constantly monitor and watch anybody who tested positive, and we are going to continue to test and get those numbers down,” he said.
“What worries me is that in such a small confined space that what jails are we thought it would be the best for our community and go ahead and test everybody because that way we know how much of a threat we actually have with COVID inside our jail.”
The jailer said he can’t force anyone to take a COVID-19 test. All inmates except for one out of 216 volunteered to be tested, he said.