This story was told by a person incarcerated at California City.
UCI: All right. And what has the COVID situation been like at your facility?
Caller: It’s been all right. I mean it was a – it was a real spread, like a lot of people, but it’s been all right. I mean, there’s been a couple people, supposedly, they said, that have passed away, but I’m not sure. That’s just hearsay, but there has been a couple people that have been real sick.
UCI: I see. And so, you haven’t been affected by COVID much, is what I’m assuming.
Caller: No. They tried to, they – I don’t know what the hell is going on with the [unintelligible]. I had – they were COVID testing all of us, and everybody in the building I’m in had COVID. And there was only, like, four of us, four of us left in here.
Everybody else caught it. So, I don’t know what the hell they were quarantining them. They were quarantining them after that. I don’t know, but somebody said that there was a couple people that passed away from it. I’m not sure.
UCI: I see. And has any of your visitation or programming been affected by COVID?
Caller: Yeah. We can’t do nothing. There’s no testing. There’s nothing at all. And only one person can come. It’s not like before.
UCI: And has that changed at all over the past year? Like, was it more restricted in the beginning of COVID, and has it gotten more lenient? Or is it basically the same the past year?
Caller: No. Right now it’s still the same. It’s been the same, you know, six feet. You’ve got to be six feet apart.
You can only hug them when they come in. And that’s about it. They said they’re supposed to give us tablets, but they haven’t gave us no tablets for a long time. They said we were supposed to get tablets to be able to talk to our families more, but I don’t know. It’s been a long time already.
UCI: I see. And have they started vaccinating at your facility?
Caller: Oh, yeah. That thing right there too is messing a bunch of people up in here. They said the vaccine shots didn’t work. My cellie got it, but he couldn’t do nothing after it. He couldn’t even get up or nothing.
I had to do everything for him. I didn’t get vaccinated. I don’t really trust it. There was a lot of people getting sick when they took it. They’re still getting sick.