This letter was written by a person incarcerated at Soledad.
I’ve been moved a few times since December 16. I was housed with my cellmate and they moved us to separate cells for four days. Then they moved me from cell living to a dorm where all the inmates were either infected with the coronavirus or had symptoms. There is no proper supplies or sanitizer.
The CDC won’t give us any chemicals to kill COVID-19. Because they are afraid we will abuse the chemicals. That’s what I think. We’re humans and not kids. We are grown men and have rights that they don’t allow us to have. People are dying in CTF Soledad. They don’t get help because we are all convicts and don’t have rights.
I pray that someone has compassion and helps to stop the spread of COVID-19 to the prisons around the world. We did not ask to get COVID-19. It was brought in prison nobody on the B-Yard tested positive till recently. All year this yard didn’t have any cases.
And all of a sudden, COVID is in our building. We heard it was in central facility months before it came to the A and B yard. It’s scary since there is really no proper way to social distance and the banks are right on top of each other.
Our cells are so small two grown men can’t social distance in the small cells. It spreads fast. The showers are also out of control here. They are running every other shower to social distance but nobody wears a mask to shower so it can spread that way.
They don’t offer us gloves to protect ourselves, and the masks are not easy to get or keep clean. I’m surrounded by men who are sick bad. There are so sick that they cant walk or hardly breathe. I pray for them and I hope they make a full recovery.
They give us N95 masks maybe once a week, if that, and the masks are hard to breathe with and stink. After wearing them for just one day and it only changed out if lucky once a week. It’s hard to function in a dorm setting with a bunch of sick people and they are touching everything that you are touching. I try not to touch my face and I wash my hands 100 times or more a day.
