The Androscoggin County Jail in Auburn is seen on Saturday evening. Seven inmates tested positive for COVID-19 and are quarantining, jail officials said Saturday. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal Buy this Photo
AUBURN — Seven inmates at the Androscoggin County Jail tested positive for COVID-19 Saturday morning, according to Jail Administrator Jeffrey Chute.
Chute said that out of a batch of 22 swab tests of inmates that were sent to the Maine Center for Disease Control, seven of them came back positive while the other 15 inmates tested negative.
The seven inmates are in isolation, according to Chute, while the 15 inmates who tested negative are in quarantine “out of an abundance of caution.”
Chute said that there were 148 inmates at the jail as of Saturday evening.
“The way we’ve been doing our testing is on Monday, we swab and test people and send them out, and we get results back pretty fast,” Chute said. “We then swab and test inmates again on Wednesday and send them out the following day.”
Two of the seven inmates who tested positive are displaying mild symptoms, Chute said, while the other five are asymptomatic.
The positive tests come on the heels of three jail employees testing positive for COVID-19 shortly after Halloween.
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