On Friday, August 20 Sheriff Mark Moon held a press conference to discuss how Covid-19 is affecting the inmates and staff at the Blount County Jail.
Deputy Buddy Hutchinson is in the hospital and is very sick. Sheriff Moon also stated they have other employees that are sick but not in the hospital.
Sheriff Moon said, “In March of 2020, we began implementing Covid-19 preventative measures here at the Blount County Correctional Facility to do everything we could to prevent the virus from entering the jail due to the pandemic.” From March 2020 through August 2021, the Blount County Jail has only had 1 inmate test positive.
In July of 2021, the Covid measures were exhausted. One inmate was found to be positive for Covid-19 and the health department was notified immediately. On August 12, the health department came in and provided rapid tests for all of the officers and inmates. The testing revealed 22 inmates and 2 correctional officers were positive for Covid-19. The inmates have been quarantined in the delta block of the jail since testing positive.
On August 12 Heath Benson Moore tested positive and passed away on August 18. Moon said, ” His passing was unexpected as everyone in that unit except for the 3 that we had in the hospital at the time have remained in the same condition or are improving. our correction staff was alerted that the inmate was unresponsive in our lockdown delta unit and our team, as well as our nurse, found Mr. Moore unresponsive and immediately began life-saving measures to include CPR and the use of an AED. Blount EMS and Fire were notified they were called and came to the scene and they took over the life-saving measures as soon as they arrived unfortunately Mr. Moore was pronounced dead at 10:08 am. On the morning of inmate Moore’s death, he got up that day and walked over to our nurse’s location and he took his daily medication. He acknowledged the nurse and they had a conversation about his health. The nurse talked to him and said she was going to check on another inmate and she would be back to check on him again. Minutes later our central station in the jail was given the call of an unresponsive inmate, at that time is when our corrections staff and nurse went down to that unit and began the life-saving measures.” Sheriff Moon later stated that Mr. Moore was unvaccinated.
Sheriff Moon said they have offered vaccinations to inmates on two different occasions.
You can watch the press conference here.