This story was told by a person incarcerated at Avenal.
UCI: Did you say that you had COVID?
Caller: Yeah.
UCI: How was that – have you been worried about like what could happen?
Caller: Yeah. It’s definitely – when I had it, I knew I had it because I’ve never been an unhealthy person. You know, I ran track in high school, everything else. And I couldn’t even walk the yard. Like when we go to chow, we walk around the, you know, the yard counterclockwise. And I couldn’t even make it halfway around the yard without having to stop to take a breath. And I’m not talking about just a quick little breather, like I actually had to stop and kind of almost keel over for a second to breath.
You know, and then I had to do it again when I got to the chow hall. And, you know, it wasn’t fun. You know, I’d wake up in the middle of the night and I physically can’t breathe. It feels like my lungs are like locking themselves up, you know. I mean I’m lucky that I didn’t get any other symptoms aside from the respiratory issues. But that was still enough to scare me. And now that it’s coming back in a second time, and I’ve heard that you can get it again, it’s scary because I don’t want my family to have to get that phone call saying, you know, your son or, you know, your little brother died in prison because of COVID-19.
So, it’s definitely nervous, you know, it makes me nervous. I’ve never, I mean I don’t think anybody’s ever had to deal with something like this before, so …
