This story was told by a person incarcerated at Chowchilla.
UCI: So, I guess that the next would be, how has the COVID-19 situation been handled differently from the beginning of this outbreak? I guess March 2020 or whenever, you know, that you first start experiencing it.
Caller: Right. I think that it’s been handled differently that they originally gave us these man-made, inmate-made face masks. The cloth masks. The cloth mask is like a polyester/cotton lint that we wear for our orange.
And I believe that had we had those actual N95 masks as the very staff were given daily, then half of us wouldn’t have been in this dire situation. ‘Cause I had 12 out of the 13 symptoms and I have a heart condition. And you know, medium-risk for everything, and I was subjected to it without my consent.
I didn’t travel. I didn’t go to school to pick it up with my peers. I didn’t sit in the dayroom to pick it up. It was delivered by an officer or, a doctor or a nurse.
Who, had they been actually doing the temperature check, we wouldn’t have been there anyway. They stopped them, they had nurses around the clock giving temperature checks at the gate in the beginning, and they lacked up on it.
Soon as they lacked up on it, COVID walked in here and destroyed almost more than – more than half the population. Every unit, there’s approximate 254 to 255 people, and almost everybody in there, maybe 16 people caught COVID. And the 16 that didn’t they, they had their own cleaning regiment which was three times a day, Sani-guard, and that’s how they avoided it.
Okay, so now what do we do? Now we’re back to catching it, reinfecting ourselves with it. You know, the idea of even letting our family members know that, “Hey, I have the COVID right now, keep me at prayer,” or a card uplifting or anything, we were never given that opportunity. The various staff members refused to let us out of our cells.
We had no out-of-cell activities for seven days, nine days, three days, two days, and we’re never told on our PA system within our unit saying, “Hey, you’re not getting program today.” We’re just standing at our doors waiting, like crazy people trying to reach our family members thinking that this, that we were gonna die, you know. To wake up everyday in prison to do your time is one thing, but to die before you complete your time is another.
