This story was told by a person incarcerated at Avenal.
UCI: Did your facility provide you with sanitizers or masks? Did they social distance you? How was their response to COVID positive inmates?
Caller: Okay, so, that’s a good question. Initially it was horrible. Our showers are on timers, so we usually have a shower scheduled. So, like, right now our showers turn on at 10:30 in the morning to 11:30.
From 2:45 to 4:15, and from 7:45 to 9:15. That’s our shower schedule. So, when COVID hit, after the initial wave of everyone getting it, they took the timers off the showers. They installed one bottle in the building of hand sanitizer. They did install some additional soap dispensers and they did provide us with masks.
So, they gave us 10 of the N95s. And pretty much whenever you want you can go over to laundry and take your old mask. So, I can go over to laundry, like, say I have seven masks that I’ve been wearing that are old, I can take seven masks over to laundry and exchange them for seven new masks.
They do require us to wear the mask inside the building, and in the chow hall, and at work. If you’re outside and you’re not with anybody you can take your mask off. The very second, you’re in a crowd of people and/or playing sports, you have to have a mask on. And they do want you social distancing. Obviously, you know, it’s hard to do that.
You got a building with 200 guys in it and you’re in a dorm. I’m in a dorm with 10 people and in a building with 200 people. No matter how you do it, if everybody were to remain six feet apart, it’s almost impossible just because of the population.
