Corrections officials at the Cumberland County Jail are still dealing with more than a dozen inmates testing positive for COVID-19, after an outbreak struck last week.

Cumberland County Sheriff Kevin Joyce said two inmates tested positive for the disease last week, while 15 more tested positive over the weekend.

On Wednesday, Joyce said a total of 17 inmates were still testing positive for COVID.

“We opened a small pod and moved all of the COVID positive inmates to that pod and medical is continually testing the others from the originating pod,” Joyce said. 

One of the jail’s employees, Joyce said, is out with COVID, but it is not clear whether the employee contracted the disease in the jail or elsewhere. None of the COVID cases, Joyce said, involve severe symptoms.

According to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, there have been a total of 232,566 positive cases of COVID-19 in Maine since the pandemic began. There have been more than 3,100 deaths and nearly 7,800 hospitalizations statewide related to the disease.