This story was told by a person incarcerated at Donovan.
Caller: I’m right here in R.J. Donovan, Level Three, Facility A. Since the pandemic outbreak on December 12th, we have not been able to get Sacramento nor this warden to get us outdoor exercise.
The World Health Organization, the Mayo Clinic, and the CDC, Center for Disease Control, have all said the best preventative medicine for COVID-19, especially for anybody with pre-existing conditions, is to get outdoors and get pulmonary exercise.
For those who have already been exposed to COVID-19 like myself, I’m experiencing heart palpitations, lung, breathing difficulties. I cannot rehabilitate because R.J.D. is writing- literally writing bootleg operation suspension memorandums that deprive all inmates from my facility outdoor exercise.
We have not been outside of our cells for outdoor exercise in over 120 days. 120 days confined to a nine by 10 cell with no outdoor exercise, no ability to function. I- we’ve all put on weight, I myself have put on 30 pounds. I’m having COVID fallout and complications- medical repercussions, and I can’t get outdoors. They keep writing these bootleg memorandums, and they are not letting us out. Especially in the COVID building- they designated A4.
We have a mixed bag of inmates who are testing positive because they’ve already been infected. They have the antibody, the inmates don’t understand that when they’re testing, and they’ve already been exposed to COVID, and they’re already over the initial COVID symptoms, and they’ve been free from COVID symptoms for over 30 days, they’re still testing positive.
So they’re being moved over here to A4. And we have a mixed bag, we have you know, 60 inmates in here that are on COVID-19 watch, with maybe 10 of them that literally have COVID-19. And none of them- none of none of us in this building are getting access to outdoor exercise.
