Nine employees of the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office are recovering in quarantine after testing positive for COVID-19.
A news release from the Sheriff’s Office states that an employee notified the agency on April 17th that their spouse had tested positive for the virus. This employee and a small work group of ten associated employees were tested for the virus by Forsyth County EMA Services. An additional seven employees that had direct or indirect contact with the potentially exposed employee were also tested.
Out of the eighteen total tests administered on April 20th, seven of the tests came back positive. An additional two employees tested positive after they developed symptoms and were retested.
The release added that each of these employees were working from home and did not have regular exposure to the public.
Those who had contact with the initially tested employees were also tested, with nearly 70 employees of the Sheriff’s Office in total tested for the virus. These tests were administered April 22nd through April 24th.
Among those tested in this additional group were Sheriff Ron Freeman and Chief Deputy Grady Sanford. Each of these tests came back negative.
The release said that no additional cases have been confirmed within the agency since April 21st and none of the affected employees worked in or visited the jail. Agency facilities were sanitized over the weekend of April 17th.
Those in quarantine are receiving daily care from the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office and their health providers.
“While we have implemented strict social distancing guidelines and issue PPE for employees, 1st responders cannot always maintain social distance,” said Sheriff Freeman. “While we are providing for the needs of our impacted employees and keeping them in our prayers, our service delivery and ability to keep Forsyth safe has not been impacted.”
Freeman went on to say that the agency has an additional 40 School Resource officers to fill in wherever needed and asked for the community’s prayers for those in recovery.
