This story is told by a person incarcerated at Corcoran.
UCI: Oh, okay. And what has the COVID situation been like at your facility?
Caller: Well, in my facility, when the outbreak started it was crazy. They came through, they already had an outbreak in part of the section of the prison that I was housed in. Knowing that there’s an outbreak in our unit and knowing that they already got us on quarantine, they still came and took us, cuffed us up, no masks, nothing, took us out and put us in holding cages where we were all on, the cages are, maybe three feet apart, and left us out there for hours, man, while they searched our building.
And they had already came in and tested us the day before and said, we got an outbreak in there. The medical did, they tested us on, like, a Saturday night. They put us all on quarantine, and that’s, you know, 120 guys in our unit. And then, the next day they came after they tested us and told us there was an outbreak.
They took us all out in handcuffs and put us in cages right next to each other and stripped us out. And then, it was pretty bad, man. I’m doing life without parole, I didn’t want to get put on a ventilator. I got high-risk medical conditions. I’ve got end stage liver disease.
Man, I wouldn’t come out of my cell for nothing. I wasn’t going to let them check my vitals. I wasn’t coming out of my cell because I was afraid once I’m in handcuffs, you know, I was having problems breathing in my cell.
I got pretty sick. I was sick for, like, two weeks. And everybody in my whole unit got sick, man. We got the vaccine. They finally came with the vaccine. I got my vaccine shots. My first one was in February, my second one was in April of this year.
UCI: Mm-hmm.
Caller: And my poor neighbor, man, that was next to me, he got sick. They transferred him to SATF next door. He got the same vaccines I did, the Pfizer vaccine, and I just got off the phone with his mom, she’s down in San Diego, man, and she hasn’t heard from him in three weeks. He got, what you call it when you get sick again? What you call a breakthrough infection?
UCI: Mm-hmm.
Caller: They haven’t heard from him in three weeks, man.
UCI: Wow.
Caller: And I tried to tell him when I was over there to fill out the medical release things for his family in case he gets sick again. Because CDCR won’t release no information to nobody out there on your medical care unless you’ve signed a waiver.
I took care of mine because of my pre-existing medical care, my medical conditions, my cirrhosis. And now, you know, they gave our contact visits back. We have to sit, you know, six feet apart, wear masks.
You only get two hours a visit. But, at least you can see your two visitors, you know. They only let two people come in to see you.
