The Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office is taking extra steps to protect officers out on patrol and inside the detention center from contracting COVID-19 on the job.
In the detention center, new inmates are being screened for the virus by having their temperature and vital signs checked. Sheriff spokesman Aaron Sarver says those detainees are then housed in a specific unit for 14 days -- to wait out the COVID-19 incubation period. If they don’t show signs of the virus, Sarver says, they are then transferred to the general inmate population.
The sheriff’s office says patrol shifts are staffed at normal levels. With schools being out, 28 school resource officers who would otherwise be monitoring schools are now available to patrol the county.
Sarver says while there are fewer cars out on the road, the department is still enforcing traffic violations -- but with added social distancing between the officer and the driver’s window.
