This story was told by a person incarcerated at Avenal.
Caller: In March they started the COVID restriction, and being in here I wasn’t wearing a mask. They wouldn’t let me wear a mask.
They would call people by name and say that I can’t have a mask on because it’s, it would be harder for them to identify me. And in our building, like 90 percent of our building tested positive for COVID. To me, they uh try to dissuade you or get you to where you don’t want to test by, if you go to the dentist or if you need to go to the dentist they give you a quick test. And over half the people that test come up positive and each time you come up positive you have to hold an entire dorm to quarantine.
Um… dorms are overcrowded, you have eight people per dorm, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but your bunk beds, and then when you go to chow you, you know you’re sitting at a table with the four people. And then your bunkies sitin’ at a table with four people, and they’re always without a mask and there’s no kind of way, there’s no way to kinda get your own personal space.
