This story was told by a person incarcerated at Avenal.
UCI: Yeah. And how was COVID-19 handled by your facility at the beginning of the outbreak?
Caller: Oh, at the beginning I don’t even think they knew what to do.
It was a – they tested everybody, and I would have to say 75 percent of the place – of our yard – because there’s six yards here – I would say 75 percent of this yard came out positive, but the remaining population who tested negative, they were still all around the positives. They weren’t separating them or nothing, which to me didn’t make sense at all, so – and now all these negatives are slowly but surely testing positive.
And as soon as they test positive, then they remove them and separate them, which again, to, I guess, to anybody with sense does not make sense, you know?
UCI: Is it being handled differently now, do you think?
Caller: I think now it’s a majority of people are already tested positive, so even some of the guys tested negative initially, they’re coming up positive.
So now whenever they test positive, it’s easier for them to remove them because they’re the minorities now. And they seclude them for, I think 14 days or 15 days, quarantine them, then they bring them back to the same place where they were housed at [unintelligible] the open setting, open dorms. So it’s not like you’re secluded behind a door like Pelican Bay, Pleasant Valley, or Corcoran or Folsom, there’s no cells, you know?
It’s like a – like a homeless shelter, if you’ve ever visited one before.
UCI: Can you please tell us month-by-month how the situation has changed at your facility? Like do you think it’s progressively getting better or?
Caller: Not better. I think everybody is just slowly by surely coming out positive. I don’t know if that’s what they’re aiming for so we could just get it over with and resume normal program, what they call it here. But they – pretty social distancing. For example, in a dorm there’s 12 – 12 beds. So that would be six bunk beds.
So to create social distancing, they told the people in the middle bunks, so they would, like, leave a middle open so the people on the left and the right, there would only be bunks. But then again, you still have bunkees, so there’s no social distancing there. So they remove those people from the middle bunks and rehouse them all over Avenal State Prison.
They threw some people inside the gym where they used to play basketball and ping pong and exercise activities. They threw – they threw, like, I would not even call them bunks. Like cots, you know? They threw cots in there and filled the gyms up with people. I don’t know. And again, the positives, they removed them and took them to a specific building until 14 or 15 days pass, and then they brought them back.
And there was – and took the day just constant movement everywhere, you know? For example, if one of my dormees would become out positive right now, because still negative since March, they would not only remove him but everybody around has to be put on quarantine, even though most of us have already been – came out positive back in March.
Separate us, I don’t know.
Make sense to –
No, I was just saying I don’t know, but some days that doesn’t make sense.
UCI: What would make the situation at your facility better do you think?
Caller: Let me see. What would make it better? I feel even though I tested positive back in March, I think the – the small population of people who came out negative since March, they’re still being tested every weekly and they still coming out negative, yet they’re still housed around those of us and have been housed around all of us since March.
I think it would be better for – to separate them maybe, you know? So they –
UCI: Yeah.
Caller: – won’t catch it.
UCI: Yeah.
Caller: But I think that would be best for them. Because for us, I mean, we –
For us, we already came out positive and there’s not much we could do, you know?
