PORTER COUNTY - Currently 33 inmates and two workers at the Porter County Jail have tested positive for COVID-19 as of Monday (4/20). Sheriff David Reynolds told Lakeshore Public Radio that the jail started a protocol for preparing for the Coronavirs in March when administration became aware of it and its eventual arrival in Northwest Indiana.
Reynolds said everyone who was arrested who didn't bond out of jail, had their temperatures taken and then were held for 14 days under quarantine.
The sheriff said at around the last week in March first week in April the jail got it's first two positive cases of COVID-19. They were two pregnant women.
Reynolds says the two jail workers tested positive for the Coronavirus but are a-symptomatic. He says in fact nearly all of the inmates tested positive for the virus are a-symptomatic.
The number of arrests and inmates at the Porter County jail are down since the COVID-19 outbreak. Reynolds says the jail population now is lower than it's been since the mid 1980s.
The sheriff says the state and local health departments have assured him that the jail is doing what it needs to respond and protect the facility from the virus.
Here is the long form of Lakeshore Public Radio's conversation with Reynolds.
