This story was told by a person incarcerated at Mule Creek.
UCI: So first, what facility are you currently housed at?
Caller: Facility E, Mule Creek State Prison.
UCI: Mule Creek State Prison?
Caller: Mhm.
UCI: Okay. So what is the current COVID-19 situation at your facility? Is it going okay? Is there anything troubling or concerning to you?
Caller: It’s, it started smoothing itself out. They’re trying to figure out what to do, but, that was just as of last week, considering they started around Thanksgiving.
UCI: Oh.
Caller: So what’s troubling is, they were locking people in the gyms with terrible conditions, unsafe environment. Asking people to constantly move while they’re sick, grabbing their property, going to different gyms, relocating. I think possibly, I was, I know I was relocated four times in the two weeks of the recommended quarantine.
UCI: Mhm.
Caller: You don’t rest, you don’t get cleaning supplies. It was just a big mess. Temperature check was kind of a joke because you get asymptomatic people, it didn’t matter. People weren’t getting their results back. People were actually negative that had results, they were still housed in the gym with the positive people who tested positive. It was all around horrible.
UCI: I see. So, were they not providing, like, masks or letting prisoners do social distancing of six feet, so they weren’t following protocol?
Caller: Okay so, the six feet social distancing was violated in Facility A, B, and C gyms. Those gyms originally had single-man cots, and they were removed, and they put in bunks, double bunks for two people to be housed on, and they took the social distancing sign off the top bunk and then used them. It said, “do not use for social distancing purposes,” but they stashed those signs down and doubled us up in facilities A, B, and C.
UCI: I see.
Caller: Approximately 80 to 100 people at one time.
