By Latrishka Thomas
Eight more inmates are now Covid-19 free after they were recently retested for the deadly virus, Acting Superintendent of Prisons Jermaine Anthony revealed.
Those inmates are officially cleared to reenter the general population at Her Majesty’s Prison.
According to Anthony, there are “11 inmates in our medical quarantine facility who are still positive for Covid-19. So that would bring us now where we would have had 37 cases of Covid-19 in the prison and a total of 26 recoveries so far.”
The remaining 11 inmates will be retested on Thursday.
On March 4, the first virus case at ‘1735’ was confirmed after an inmate showed symptoms and was sent to the hospital for medical attention.
He returned a positive test which triggered institution-wide testing on March 6 and 7.
Then, on March 13, the prison administration confirmed that 32 asymptotic inmates had tested positive and three corrections officers tested positive.
Later that month, all inmates confirmed to have contracted the Covid-19 virus were then transferred to the newly retrofitted Crabb’s facility.
Meanwhile, hundreds of inmates have refused to be inoculated.
Sixty-five out of over 200 inmates were vaccinated on March 8, however, only three volunteered to take the injection on March 25.
Anthony said that a vaccine sensitization programme will be conducted before any more inmates are vaccinated.
“What the prison will be doing in the near future is, we will be embarking on an education programme for the inmates which will be spearheaded by representatives of the Ministry of Health to try and educate them further as to whether or not the vaccine is best for them. And, following that, we will be embarking on another programme to have vaccination available to the inmates,” he explained.