This story was told by a person incarcerated at Santa Rita Jail.
UCI: What has the COVID situation been like at your facility?
Caller: It’s been really bad, they, so, that like, they just put people in quarantine. You know, for no reason have them in quarantine. For, you know, over the 14 days that is required due to Cal/OSHA or the CDC requirements or whichever one that gives the jail guidelines on how to deal with the COVID, the COVID quarantine regulations and stuff like that. It’s very – it’s very unjust.
My attorney even just tried to come up here, to visit me while I was in quarantine. They had me in quarantine for over – for over, I want to say, 21 days. Just due to, I wasn’t, they only got one classification in one building, so I wasn’t able to go back to that building per my classification. And they kept me in the quarantine pod, and that’s what had me in there for 21 days.
They said they used that as a buffer, that I had to get rid of my orange medical in order for me to get out of that quarantine. They made me miss court for that. My attorney, like I said, wasn’t able to come and see me because I was in quarantine.
And as soon as I got out of quarantine, I finally got out, I believe after those 20, 21 days and I got tooken off the orange medical. I went out to a main pod where like, it’s regular, it’s green. Greens and orange medicals are two different, like, classifications.
Orange had their own pods, those are the people that’s, you know, easy exposed and that can have a damaging effect if they catch COVID. You know, diabetes, high blood pressure, all those, etc. So, they have like a pod for those individuals that – that’s at risk.
So, I had to get rid of my orange medical in order for me to get out the quarantine pod. I was missing court and stuff like that. Like I said, my visits and stuff like that. So once I was able to get, remove my orange medical because I needed to get to court, stuff like that, I went into a green building, which is like, you know, people that if they do catch COVID they’re not really at risk, it won’t affect them as bad.
So, I had went to that building and immediately within, I want to say less than a week or maybe a week, I caught COVID. I had to go back to a quarantine building. And, as, the reason why I had caught COVID because they, it was somebody in the pod that was COVID. He was isolated by himself but in the same pod with everybody else.
They was letting him come out by himself but he was still coming out, you know, getting on the phone, watching TV, using the shower. There was no bleach, no anything used as far as to try and contain it, or contaminate any germs that he may leave behind for when we come out for pod time, like, for the people that come out pod time after him.
And it was a lot of people that was catching COVID. Let’s just say in that one pod, like, three to four people and I was included in catching COVID. That’s how I caught COVID. I was very sick and stuff like that. So, you know, I went to quarantine and stuff like that.
