Putnam Jail Lifts In-Person Visitation Suspension, Facility COVID Free

In-person visitations at the Putnam County Jail are set to resume Monday.

Visitations were temporarily suspended for three weeks after a COVID spike among inmates. Sheriff Eddie Farris said the facility now stands COVID free.

“We’ve certainly made some progress over the last few days,” Farris said. “So the 27th everybody will be off quarantine. So, we’re excited about that. I think we have had approximately five inmates since the latter part of July to the first part of August that had tested positive.”

Farris said transportation of inmates to and from other facilities will not resume at this time. Farris said the jail will be accepting inmates on a case by case basis for more serious charges such as violent felons or DUIs.

“We will take in,” Farris said. “We’re trying to accommodate and have enough room, so we can quarantine new people that are arrested and coming into our facility. Obviously, even those folks go into a protocol of questions and testing and temperature testing and working with our medical to make sure we can limit exposure.”

Farris said all new jail inmates will enter a cell alone before entering the population. Farris said other programs like drug rehab and Alcoholics Anonymous remain suspended to limit foot traffic coming into the jail.

“We’re still going to hold off on some of those individuals coming into our facility for another week or so and evaluate that at that time to see how we are,” Farris said. “We are just really trying to limit exposure of people coming in and going out of our facility.”