What to know about Muscogee County Jail’s plan to offer COVID vaccine to inmates, staff
Inmates and staff at the Muscgoee County Jail will soon have the option to receive the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine.
Sheriff Greg Countryman is currently working on a partnership with a Columbus practitioner to provide vaccines as soon as next week, Colonel Lt. John Darr told the Ledger-Enquirer Thursday.
“We will offer it to any and every inmate in our custody to get the vaccine,” Darr said. “We’re not going to force anybody to and we don’t want to force anybody. It will be optional...Sheriff Countryman’s main goal is the welfare of inmates in our custody, and we want to be able to provide the opportunity for anyone to get vaccinated while working in our facility or in our custody.”
Officers and staff members will also have the opportunity to get vaccinated through the partnership.
Under current protocols, any inmate that enters the facility must undergo a physical and a COVID-19 screening. The jail also offers rapid testing for individuals and holds new inmates in a temporary quarantine for 10 days before being housed inside the facility.
Statewide, there are 3,739 confirmed COVID-19 cases among the approximately 49,000 offender population, according to the Georgia Department of Corrections COVID-19 dashboard. So far, 3,602 offenders have recovered with a total of 93 deaths from COVID-19. Likewise, there are 1,703 confirmed COVID-19 among Georgia correctional staff with 1,658 recovered and four deaths.
Darr says that officials are hoping that more than half of the inmate population at the jail will voluntarily receive the vaccine when made available.
“We’re hoping to roll this out sooner than later,” Darr said. “The plan is to get this going within the next week or two depending on availability of the vaccines and rolling it out without causing too much disruption of activities within the facility.”
