This story was told by a person incarcerated at New Folsom.
UCI: What facility are you currently housed at?
Caller: At the California State Prison.
UCI: What has the COVID situation been like at your facility?
Caller: It’s out of control. And that’s the purpose of my call right now.
UCI: What do you mean by out of control? Can you elaborate?
Caller: Yes. As of right now, say for instance, this is my housing unit that I’m in and the facility has been – all buildings has been infected with the omicron variant. And so, basically we’re supposed to be quarantined 14 days anytime a person is positive within that building.
Okay, since we’ve been on lockdown since, the middle of January that we came off in December and their program, their protocol, is supposed to be where anytime staff come on in the sections, they’re supposed to put on the medical, the medical quarantine protocol gear. Which they don’t do. Medical don’t do it.
Only thing they come in with is the face mask on. And then on top of that, medical quarantine in the prison system, which I got years of being in, and then quarantine in the past before any of this came out, when you have hepatitis or tuberculosis and they do the quarantine, nobody, no inmates are allowed out these cells.
And this is the state emergency quarantine right here so the COs are too lazy to do their job and what they get paid for. They’re allowing the inmate porters to come out, handle the food, pass out the food, serve the food. They’re not supposed to open these doors and they’re opening the cell doors when they supposed to unlock the key and put the food through the tray slot.
They’re opening the doors. COs having the control several times, open the doors and having the inmate porters give you food and stuff. And five inmate porters in this building, within the last month, have been quarantined and sent to the quarantine unit because they go, they were infected by COs that they work with.
And you have four COs within this building have not been able to come to work for two weeks because they have caught it. So the main thing is, is that the quarantine policies, they’re not locking this down for 14 days. It’s just they took five dudes out of this building that tested positive today, but they still ran yard one section at a time.
We’re supposed to be immediately quarantined for 14 days and nobody come out their cells besides to shower. And as you see, I’m on the phone with you right now. Quarantine means no phone calls, no interacting with anybody else, and then they say the distance is six feet.
The next man is talking on the phone next to me, the phones are only about four and a half feet away from each other. So I got my mask on right now, and I disinfect the phone before I got on and the whole time we’ve been quarantined, I don’t use the phone.
But, I think it’s important that I’m using it now because I think it’s important that somebody know that the quarantine policies are not being followed. And then they’re getting paid, to my understanding, they’re getting paid for a large amount of money for inmates being over there in the quarantine building.
They have extended the quarantine building to another building. And some of the inmates that they’re taking down there are not even positive and didn’t test positive. They said inconclusive and then some of the inmates didn’t even take the test, they telling them, “Well you tested positive, you got to go down there.”
And then when they tell them, “Well I didn’t even take the test”. They’re forcing them to go down there anyway because they’re trying to fill it up.
They can get this extra money that they’re getting from the state for whatever reason I don’t know. But the whole thing of it is, medical is not wearing the gear when they come by temperature check you. When they come by they do the COVID swab test and stuff, they’re supposed to have them on the medical protocol, the medical gear, they don’t wear.
So, when they let us out for field call and stuff, you’re normally supposed to let out one cell at a time and all their protocols they give us and they want us to follow, they don’t follow them themselves. And so, my main issue is that someone needs to look into what they’re doing here because it’s not right.
You have some COs that come on in here that don’t even wear the mask, so. And they’re putting us at a greater danger and then I tried to share with most of these inmates that, “Look, y’all need to stop doing- working with these COs and passing out the food and coming out your cells because they’re not at risk, we are.”
And I done asked medical and staff, “Why are y’all no quarantining us and locking the building down for 14 days the way you’re supposed to?” And the way that they’re doing it now, they’ve been doing it like this since March. Matter of fact, when they first put us on our first lockdown in this institution was on March of 2020.
And ever since then, staff has been letting out porters to do the feeding and stuff. And then the protocol here in this prison anyway, inmate porters are not supposed to be touching the food anyway because they’re not assigned kitchen workers.
So you’re putting us at greater risk because you don’t know what these dudes got before they’re touching and handling the food anyway. So, they’re putting us at greater risk by not following the protocol.
UCI: How has the vaccination situation been like?
Caller: Well, me myself, I can’t be vaccinated because I have sarcoidosis and neutropenia. And my neutropenia condition says that I’m not supposed to be vaccinated or vaccinated with any type of live vaccination or anything of that nature. So I’m not going to get vaccinated.
They’ve been trying to force me, the doctors will even try to get mental health talk to me about being vaccinated but anybody that wants to be vaccinated, they can be vaccinated. But at the same time, all the people, they just took three people out of this section and two out of the other section which are totally vaccinated and have full boosters.
So it ain’t really doing no good because if they’re not following the protocol of quarantining, it don’t do no good. And the building is- we’re supposed to be on quarantine right now and they had them people go to work outside the building. They got guys going to the main kitchen and the maintenance inmates going out to work and we’re supposed to be on quarantine.
They just took five dudes out of here today. The other day they took two or three people. And every other day, with their housing unit four. They done took, within the month of January, they done took over 20 people. And in the last couple days they just took seven people out of this building.
They still won’t follow the protocol of quarantine and most of that comes from the COs thinking that they’re too good to prepare the food like they’re supposed to. Which, even before all of this quarantine stuff happened, inmate porters are not allowed to touch the food, period. Because when I wrote that up all the way from the sergeants, the lieutenants, the [unintelligible] wardens, the chief deputy wardens, and the wardens, all lied.
Even in my petition to the court, it said that inmates porters don’t handle the food, in which they do. And they said they don’t be opening the doors to give us our food and that the officers open the tray slots, serve you your food, and come back 15 minutes later and then get your trays. That’s not true.
The inmates are basically doing most of the food serving and then when the COs do come on the tier and unlock the doors then the inmates are handing them the food still to give to you. And then the COs will not set up the food. It’s inmate porters doing it and inmate porters are not clear for food handling so they shouldn’t touch it.
And this is way before the quarantine, so if they wasn’t allowed to do it before the quarantine they surely should not be doing it now. And my whole point is okay, when we are on medical quarantine, the COs get paid half pay for hazardous pay for having to do all this other work that they don’t do anyway. And the inmates, they just don’t understand, y’all are putting us in danger because the COs are too lazy to do their jobs that they’re supposed to do.
UCI: How has the situation at your facility affected your loved ones?
Caller: Well, I don’t get visits. I communicate with my fiancé but we don’t communicate. I wrote her and let her know that I’m not going to be using the phones because I believe most of the virus is being spread through the phone. Because, you have a lot of dudes that come out here and get on these phones and they won’t disinfect it.
They’re coughing and sneezing while they’re on the phone and they won’t clean them. So, and I believe that’s how it’s getting spread so I don’t use the phone period. This is the first time I’ve used the phone in about like almost two months.
UCI: Wow. How have you been coping with the crisis?
Caller: Well, me personally, it’s stressful because I have about five or six underlying medical conditions. I have sarcoidosis and neutropenia. And also the sarcoidosis attacks my white blood cells which also my T-cells so everything is low.
And they claimed that I had COVID in January of 2021 which was a lie and I told them. And when I had to do a hunger strike to get them to get me a rapid test. And when they gave me a rapid test, the rapid test was negative for COVID, period.
And what it is, is that when I have permanent lung damage because the sarcoidosis attacks my – mostly affected in my lungs and it affects the heart. I have heart conditions and just found out in September [redacted] that I was diagnosed with the sarcoidosis in the head and the brain also.
So these things affect me because they will not give us disinfectants, they will not give us the clean pads to clean out your toilet and stuff like that. You have to make your own way and like I clean my cell with shampoo and body wash. Because – and then every once in a while, I might find a CO that doesn’t mind – they ain’t really tripping on the disinfectant.
And so it’s like, you have to find your own way to keep your cell clean. And I have to be very extra careful in my situation because, with all my different conditions, you know, catching the coronavirus, I’m basically dead because I don’t have the immune system to fight it off.
And then it’s also stressful because, the doctors are trying to diminish my medical conditions, which I’m high risk medical and have all these different high risk conditions. And they’re trying to [unintelligible].
Then when I went to go do all my testing and all my labs and scans of my heart and my lungs and everything; they’re all are at normal and then they’re all way below out of range. They’re getting ready to cut us off right now for the 60 seconds so, anything else?
UCI: If there’s anything else you want people to know, you can say it. But if not I want to thank you very much for participating.
Caller: Okay, well, see, every time something come up, I will be calling. And I’ve been meaning to write also. It’s just that basically with all the stuff messing with my head, sometimes sitting up straight I get fatigued and weak and pass out sometimes. So when I get the time, I will write.
