Cass County Correctional Facility Discusses Their Procedure For Sick Inmates

The Cass County Sherrif discussed the facility's process of isolation and quarantine

CASS COUNTY, N.D. – Since the COVID-19 pandemic started, The Cass County correctional facility has been taking extra precautions to assure the safety of inmates and staff.

“That begins with a screening process when officers come to our facility. That screening process is for the officers who are bringing the intakes into our facility and then the actual person who is brought in. And during that time a series of questions are asked so we can see you know if they have any symptoms that are consistent with the coronavirus,” says Cass County Sheriff Jesse Jahner.

The first part of the intake process for the individuals who come in is isolation.

“What that’s really for is to keep them away from the general population until we can further determine if they would have any symptoms that are consistent with coronavirus. If during that time we find that the person has symptoms that are consistent, then we’re going to place those persons into quarantine, so we can do further assessment through medical staff to determine if we need to further take them in to take a test or just monitor day to day before we put them back into the general population,” he says.

The Correctional Facility had as of yesterday, two people in quarantine and three people in isolation.

“Today, we only have one person in isolation and all those individuals who were both in quarantine and in isolation yesterday have been checked by medical staff and have been approved to go back into our general population. They’re no longer displaying any symptoms or developing any sort of illness,” Jahner says.

Cass County Sheriff Jesse Jahner says the time individuals spend in isolation varies from person to person and it could be usually between 7-10 days.