This story was told by a person incarcerated at Donovan.
Caller: Is my own safety, of course. I do understand that if anybody contract COVID, it have to come in from outside.
I see a lot of different staff has different attitude towards mask protocols and six feet distancing. Some do, some just don’t. They don’t like to wear glo- wear, wear, wear masks, just same as inmates here. So that’s my concern.
The setting in our facility is six men confined cell. They call it “pod”. That concerns me because six men has different activities all day. I’m not sure who they interacting with staff, nurse, so that’s my problem. Oh and other thing is that I see so often when people complaining about coughing or, or, or fever may come across by common cold. They been sending out to different facility which, it’s very inconvenient.
Lot of, lot of inmates in here are doing life sentence. Meaning where they at right now is, is where they live. This is everything they have. And when you’re being moved just because you have little cough, that’s another concern. Other than that I think I’m coping OK, consider the circumstances, yes.
UCI: Okay. And how was COVID-19 handled at your facility at the beginning of the outbreak?
Caller: Oh at the beginning, we, oh I remember we were under, we were under modified program, just like now. We didn’t have no yard or anything but we weren’t issued no masks for I want to say at least two to three months in that we finally got some masks.
We were, we were, we were really confused because they were enforcing the six feet distancing, social distancing, however we were in the same dining hall with, packed in, 150 guys in there from different buildings. So we’re getting different messages. Maybe the department was confused about it also, but we were definitely confused.
UCI: And is it being handled differently now?
Caller: It’s, it, it has been, yes, I consider this is a lot better than the beginning. Cause we are not walking to dining hall, which, you know that eliminates the interaction with guys from different buildings so that’s kinda, that’s a good thing. Also, other than that, well other than that I think it’s the same. Except, yeah.