TEXARKANA - Officials with Miller County jail and Bi-State jail have made efforts to make sure inmates are vaccinated.
"Anyone who chooses to be vaccinated has received a vaccine," said Capt. Mark Lewis, chief deputy of the Miller County Sheriff's Office.
Lewis said there were several days of vaccinations for inmates.
"We brought in our in-house medical staff to do the vaccinations and did it for several days," he said.
Bowie County Sheriff Jeff Neal said he is working with the county's Office of Emergency Management to obtain some vaccines for the jail staff and inmates.
"I anticipate this happening soon," he said. "The inmates were asked if they would like to take the vaccine. The program is completely voluntary."
Lewis said despite the majority of inmates being vaccinated, jails are "never completely free of COVID."
"Someone is exposed, then they come into jail, which is a controlled environment. We deal with it on a daily basis," he said.
Lewis said there are usually a couple of inmates in isolation due to COVID.
Bowie County has had four inmates test positive over the course of about a week's time, Neal said.
"They have been removed from the pods they were in and isolated. The pods they were removed from have been placed on quarantine, to watch the other inmates that they were around for symptoms," he said.
Jail administrators and staff have been "diligent" about precautions against the coronavirus and started taking precautions early.
Some of the practices used in the jails come from Texas Department of Corrections and Arkansas Department of Corrections.
New inmates that are booked into jail are also having their temperatures taken and are asked questions from a virus screening form that also covers flu symptoms.