This letter was written by a person incarcerated at Tehachapi.
So here you have to keep your distance from the people that have COVID-19 because that’s where everyone who has COVID-19 is at.
It’s kind of dumb because people who have it are using the same things in the building as far as the showers, the phones, the tables, food trays, etc. There are other inmates that are infected and sick. They just don’t say anything because they don’t want to get quarantined for 14 days. They still wear masks and stuff but they’re sick.
There are symptomatic and asymptomatic. But you as an individual have to protect yourself and go to great lengths to do it. For example, people still shake hands and hug and share drinks. And as an individual, you have to avoid that, wash your hands effectively and frequently. People are also sharing needles to do their drugs. People don’t social distance. Here to get your breakfast, they open your door and it’s a lot of people. You line up and get a tray they recently switched to paper trays and they serve you the food and move along. Everyone is wearing their masks, gloves, and hair nets.
The ones servings are inmates. Just recently, in December, they shutdown one program again because too many people had COVID-19. Some staff had it, and asymptomatically passed it to the inmates. So they tested all the inmates and some have it and they were sent to one block. After, they started to do temperature checks twice a day. So for those who take medicines, they open their cell door and walk to the medical facility across the yard, outside towards the patio area.
The staff (like free staff, nurses, doctors, etc.) distribute the meds one inmate at a time, one building at a time. Anyhow I wanted to say that around the time the pandemic was in full swing like mid March, early April, the Department of Corrections shut down all visitation, made cloth coverings and passed them out to inmates. That didn’t prevent the virus from entering the prison population.
Well, as of today, here where I’m at, it’s terrible. It’s like living in a horror movie or horror nightmare. Everyone is sick, COVID or not. In the ventilation systems, all you hear is coughing, spitting, clearing throats, sneezing. And it’s the air we breathe that is recycled. And staff come in and know this, but corrections officers don’t care, don’t wear masks sometimes. And if I or any inmates tells them anything about wearing a mask, they go off on you and talk to you like you’re a piece of shit. And if you respond they put hands on you. A lot are like this. Some are cool.
Majority though like to put hands on you, put you on the ground, spray you with pepper spray and send you to the Hole all sprayed up. For real. Not joking. So we just let them be. We cannot win. We’re just concerned for our own safety, that’s all. Now here in this building is where they are quarantining and isolating people. And so, yes, they check our vitals and temperature twice a day, feed us twice a day. There are still people who are sick or tested positive for COVID-19, they’re still passing out the food to us.
Staff are supposed to do it but laziness and procrastination kicks in! Yes, the inmates wipe down all the items with disinfectant and the same dirty rag they’ve been using day after day. Yes, they use gloves (latex gloves) over and over! This is the thing. We want to use the payphones for 15 minutes. So they have a list and we sign up the day before. Now when we use the phone, no one wipes it, before or after.
Everyone uses the phones. Feel me?! So they shut down yard, dayroom, and they are allowing us to go to commissary and packages. But the system is outdated, the way they do things.
