Two more Bristol County Sheriff’s Office corrections officers have tested positive for Covid-19, according to a statement from the office on April 24.

According to the statement, the most recent officer to test positive was last at the Faunce Corner Road facility on Sunday, April 19, when he worked in a housing unit during second shift. He became ill on Monday and Tuesday, when he was off work, and tested positive for coronavirus on Wednesday, April 22.

He is the seventh Bristol County staff member to test positive for the virus.

The Sheriff’s Office stated that the sixth case, also a corrections officer, left work after becoming ill in the early morning hours of Sunday, April 19, during a third-shift assignment in a control room at the Bristol County House of Corrections in Dartmouth. He received a Covid-19 test later on April 19 and was notified of a positive test on Monday, April 20.

"There have been almost 2,000 confirmed cases of the virus in Bristol County overall," Sheriff Thomas Hodgson said Thursday morning. "We feel very fortunate that every staff member who has tested positive at the Sheriff's Office has either made a full recovery and returned to duty or is feeling okay and expected back soon."
Three staffers have fully recovered and returned to duty and the others are expected to fully recover and return to work in the coming days and weeks.

"We have always been mindful that staff and their families are out in the community at the grocery store, gas station and other places when shopping or tending to other responsibilities, and that is why we have strict screening, sanitation and reporting requirements in place to minimize the risk of exposure to our staff and inmate population," Hodgson noted. "There are hundreds of essential workers here around the clock.”

"The next few weeks are expected to be rough, so I can't stress enough to the people of Bristol County the importance of staying home if possible and practicing strict hygiene protocols,” he added. “We'll get through this together."

Currently, no one incarcerated in a Bristol County corrections facility has tested positive for the virus, according to the office’s statement. Eight symptomatic prisoners have tested negative.