This story was told by a person incarcerated at an ICE/Private-Contractor facility.
UCI: Tell me about your COVID story.
Caller: Well, last year while I was in prison around February or March is when, basically, the whole prison that I was in, the dorm that I was in – actually the unit I was in, one person after another started catching it.
And, you know, a lot of people were afraid to, basically, communicate and tell staff that we were catching COVID due to that they were trying to pull us and isolate every single one of us. And they were trying to put us in single cells, and nobody really wanted to speak up and say that they were catching COVID.
So, shortly after that, probably a couple weeks later, that’s when I caught COVID myself. And, yeah, I mean it was pretty horrible, I mean the pain that we had, you know, the bones just hurting, your skin hurting, the fever you were having. And it probably took the staff about- I don’t know, probably close to a month for them to come in and start doing random temperature checks and–
UCI: Damn.
Caller: -basically checking everybody. Yeah, it took quite a long time for them to come in. And even with just telling them the symptoms you were having, all they were giving you was just Tylenol. They weren’t giving you any other kind of treatment, you know?
UCI: Damn.
Caller: So, for, like, two weeks, I was just eating, I mean eating- I was taking Tylenol and Tylenol just for my fevers and stuff. And that was really it. I mean it was just pretty stressful, you know?
UCI: I’m sure.
Caller: You’re feeling vulnerable. You’re just in bed and just fighting through it, really. Just massive headaches. And you could barely get up and just walk around because of those headaches and you feel dizzy.
UCI: Well, you must feel like not abandoned but on your own, you know? Even though you have- you must- there must be the resources, but you just don’t have access to them.
Caller: Right, of course.
UCI: What facility did you say you were at?
Caller: [redacted].
UCI: Okay, thank you. I’ve just got to make sure I get that. Thanks. So, yeah, man. That sounds crazy.
Caller: Yeah. And then, of course, you know, you don’t have really anybody to talk to or help you. I mean all you really do is do it all on your own. And it makes it even worse because they want to put you in isolation by yourself even though a lot of the times it’s just the whole dorm or it’s just even the whole facility’s just catching it. And they want to isolate you, and just- that’s even worse, you know?
UCI: Yeah.
Caller: Mentally, it’s worse being by yourself. So, yeah. I mean I don’t know what else to say really, because you do it all on your own. You really do.
UCI: Dude, I don’t even know what that’s like. That had to have been a crazy experience.
