This story was told by a person incarcerated at Avenal.
Caller: It was hard to be able to wear a mask. And it was uh, they harassed you, they didn’t, the staff didn’t wear a mask. It was um, you know as quick as we wanted to be able to wear a mask, they weren’t letting us wear them, it wasn’t until like a whole building tested positive, that they took it more seriously.
UCI: Are they saying that because of identification purposes?
Caller: Can’t hear.
UCI: Are they saying you can’t wear it for identification purposes?
Caller: That’s what they were saying in the beginning, and it was really ironic because they called me over by name, and told me that I couldn’t wear a face covering because they couldn’t identify who I was.
UCI: Okay, what’s being handled differently now?
Caller: What’s being handled differently now, right. The hard part now is nobody wants to get tested because the results now are, they’re gonna take the whole dorm, and I kinda get it, I understand nobody wants their whole dorm, to you know like if one person tests positive inside a dorm they take all eight people and put them over in a lock-up unit in quarantine.
So everybody’s property has to get boxed up, packed up, and you have to move over there, um freezing cold cell for 14 days and come back.
But at the same time, you know, this second wave of the pandemic, what’s gonna happen? What’s gonna happen when the flu starts going around?
