BUTTE - Butte-Silver Bow has had a spike of 27 new Covid-19 cases, with at least half of them coming out of a community corrections facility in the Mining City.
“It’s making an old man out of me, I can assure you that,” said Community, Counseling and Correctional Services Director Mike Thatcher.
The Connections Corrections Program reports 16 clients and two staff members have tested positive for the virus recently. This program is a 90-day addiction treatment center for offenders run by the Community, Counseling and Correctional Services program. None of the offenders in the Butte Pre-release Program has tested positive.
All this has happened despite many safety protocols put in place.
“We’ve wearing masks in our program since March, so we implemented a lot of protective measures early on,” said Thatcher.
All infected clients and staff have been placed in quarantine and the program is not taking in new clients.
“We take their temps multiple times a day, we’ve got hand sanitizers throughout the facility, all those things are in place, and they have been in place since, really, March,” said Thatcher.
In his more than 30 years in this business, Thatcher says the pandemic has been one of the most challenging times for him and his staff.
“With the flu season coming on, we’re nervous, that’s an understatement. The flu coupled with the COVID, you know, not a good thing,” he said.