COLUMBIA, S.C. — As COVID-19 cases surge across the state, county jails and prisons are implementing more restrictions, prevent possible outbreaks.
The Sumter County detention center started a 10-day emergency quarantine on Monday due to the rise in COVID cases.
Major Patricia Ray says during this time inmates will not be allowed to make phone or video calls.
"You don’t want whoever is positive, spreading it to the ones that are not," said Major Ray.
She went on to say, “We’re taking these steps because in this facility we have so many people, we want to be proactive and not get the virus here to be an outbreak.”
“It’s like four phones together and it doesn’t give you enough time to clean in between each use of that area,” said Major Ray, explaining why phone calls can't be made by inmates now.
Major Ray says of the 254 inmates currently at the jail about 10 have COVID.
She says inmates are COVID tested every Tuesday and Thursday, and if they're experiencing symptoms they're tested immediately.
“If an inmate does test positive, the nurse does temperature tests every day," said Major Ray.
According to the Sumter County Detention Center, inmates are still allowed calls with legal counsel. The quarantine period is set to expire on January 10th. The department says it will reassess the situation then.
Meanwhile, in Newberry County, Sheriff Lee Foster says the only in-person visitation allowed at Newberry County Jail is with legal counsel.
“We do not have the room to if we get a mass outbreak to isolate and separate," said Sheriff Foster.
He went on to say, “Right now we do not have anyone in the jail with COVID.”
According to the sheriff all new inmates are screened and tested for COVID after being booked.
“If any time during the screening it’s questionable on the screening, then that person would be in an isolation section until we can do further testing on that.”
In a statement, the South Carolina Department of Corrections said, "The covid protocols developed in 2020 remain in place, and both staff and inmates are vigilant about keeping areas clean and sanitized.
"While minimum-security and female institutions already were allowing inmates to visit, we opened up visitation on Christmas weekend for the other institutions for the first time since March 2020. It went really well, and we had more than 500 inmates receive visits.
"We do not allow institutions with active inmate Covid cases to visit, but the other institutions were able to visit over New Year’s weekend also."