Middleton Jail and House of Corrections sees significant drop in COVID-19 cases

Sheriff Kevin Coppinger

MIDDLETON – The number of inmate cases of COVID-19 at the Middleton Jail and House of Correction has dropped from a recent high of 137 to 15 active cases, announced Essex County Sheriff Kevin Coppinger.

A sudden increase in cases at the Sheriff’s Middleton facility beginning Sept. 22, 2020, resulted in an agency-wide testing of every inmate, employee and vendor. Of the nearly 1,700 tests performed between Oct. 3 and Oct. 6, 137 positive inmate cases were discovered. 15 active COVID cases remain.

Over 72 percent of those testing positive showed no symptoms of the virus while the remainder experienced only mild symptoms. There were no hospitalizations of any inmate.

“We used testing as an investigatory tool to identify positive cases and isolate those carriers of the virus. Once we identified the positive cases, our healthcare provider WellPath monitored each person daily, provided care and comfort, and made thedetermination of who was medically recovered according to strict state and federal guidelines,” Sheriff Coppinger said. “As acorrectional facility, we make no determinations in medical care and we leave those decisions in the very capable hands of WellPath.”

WellPath followed guidelines set forth by the Centers for Disease Control and the state Department of Public Health for determining which cases were medically cleared. Those guidelines state that a person is considered clinically recovered 10 days after a positive test, so long as the person has shown no symptoms and is fever-free without fever-reducing medications in the 24 hours prior to the 10th day.

Inmates who tested positive were moved into one housing unit to isolate the spread of the virus. WellPath providers monitored each case and provided daily clear before medically clearing them to return to their housing units.

There were no inmate positive cases found at the Department’s other housing facilities – the Essex Pre-Release and Re-Entry Center in Lawrence and the Women in Transition program in Salisbury.

Visitation remains temporarily suspended at the Middleton Jail and House of Correction.