This story was told by a person incarcerated at Elmwood Correctional Facility.
UCI: And have they been giving you sanitation supplies or fresh masks? How is that working?
Caller: Well, well see that’s the funny thing about it is. So, I read in the newspaper saying that they give us new masks like three times a week, or whenever asked and stuff like that and which isn’t like, fully true. We’d have to like very much demand or like go through like rigorous like arguments with them, or like requests in order to just to get a mask from them sometimes.
And we don’t always get it like every week as they say, we usually get about one mask that we always have to rewash ourselves or sometimes we get disposable ones but we kind of just got to request those and just kind of wait until whenever they feel like handing them out to us.
UCI: When was the last time you got a new mask?
Caller: Last time I got a new mask was probably about a month ago.
UCI: How have you been coping with this crisis?
Caller: What was that?
UCI: How have you been coping with this crisis?
Caller: Oh, man, it’s kind of, it’s kind of up and down and kind of like an up and down. Like failing, because there’s so many people in here that I know that’s got it, they’ve got sick, and they’re positive. And it’s crazy. Because we’re like we share, we share like a same bunks, know what I mean.
We’re like damn near, I mean, excuse my language, we’re like, two feet apart from each other, maybe three, four feet apart from each other, and the beds next to us. And then we have barracks that are like maybe 40, 50 people in a barracks with each bunk only, like four feet away from each other. So close.
So then when one person test is positive, and we’re sharing the same bathrooms, the same sinks, the same showers, and even when one person tests positive, it’s not like they literally sterilize the pods itself or the showers in that thing. So, you know, could still be airborne itself. So, it’s kind of like a very hard time.
UCI: I’m sorry to hear that. So, what I’m hearing is that they don’t sanitize the sinks or the showers at all, even when someone’s tested positive.
Caller: Yeah, that’s correct.
