Maine's Department of Corrections taking extra precautions against COVID-19

​Maine’s Department of Corrections is doing everything possible to keep COVID-19 out of our jails and prisons.

Commissioner Randall Liberty says there have been no positive cases within the facilities.

He says to minimize that possibility they are reducing the number of people coming in, which includes eliminating visits.

They also have cut back on moving inmates from facility to facility.

The commissioner add there's also been about a 20 percent reduction in inmates in the county jails, too.

Employees temperatures are being checked daily, along with questions about their medical status.

Liberty says the inmates have also been making personal protective equipment.

Randall Liberty, Commissioner of the Maine Department of Corrections says, “We have issued masks to each of the offenders and employees and to some of the folks in the jails and now we are distributing them to food pantries, soup kitchens, homeless shelters, to make sure the most vulnerable Mainer's have the PPE at no cost to them.”

So far they've made 5,000 cloth masks, more than 500 gowns and 250 face shields.