This letter was written by a person incarcerated at Folsom.
Dear PrisonPandemic,
How are you? Well, I sincerely hope that these few lines find you in the very best of health. As for myself, I’m good! Well first and foremost, I want to thank you for the utmost welcome letter that you sent me.
It really felt good to know that there are people on the outside that cares about us incarcerated people.
So far PrisonPandemic, I’ve been one of the lucky one who have not caught the deadly virus, that has turned this prison setting in a whole different direction for the worst for us incarcerated people. It has definitely been one scary and fearful situation trying out best not to catch the virus. But unfortunately, for some of us here at Folsom State Prison, It was impossible to dodge the virus.
And that’s because the people that runs this institution has continued to allow their employees who are infected with the virus to come on the facility rounds with only a temperature check.
On top of that, they sent some of their officers to San Quentin State Prison to assist them with the massive outbreak of the virus, then allowed those same officers to come back here and work around the inmates. So, somewhere at the end of June 2020, a couple of correction officers and a nurse tested positive for the virus. So in July 2020, the medical staff COVID tested every inmate at this institution.
Not one inmate came back positive. But in August 2020, a free staff that worked in PIA tested positive for the virus. So again that same day, the medical staff tested all of the inmates.
But just like the first time, there weren’t any positive tests coming back. But for some reason the warden decided to quarantine the inmates and shut down all movement for us. “No yard, no visits, no phone calls, no work, no school, no self help programs, and no walking to the chow hall.”
But what had everybody confused is that the officers who were here when the virus first hit wasn’t quarantined at all. They continued to come to work. As the days and weeks went by, they continued to COVID test us with that painful, long q-tip up our noses. They continue to cell feed us with those uncovered paper plates that were exposed to the cold air.
Which felt like we were in solitary confinement being punished for a deadly virus that was brought into this institution from the public by prison employees.
Anyway, things really turned for the worst when the medical staff started testing us with the new rapid COVID testing kits. All of a sudden hundreds and hundreds of inmates started testing positive for the virus in the building where those officers that came back from San Quentin Prison worked. After that the virus was in every building, so the institution brought the tents on the yard and started housing all of the positive inmates in them for 14 days quarantine.
Now every three days after we took the test we had to listen to see if our names were going to be called to roll up some of our property. Which meant that we were being moved outside to the tents because the tests came back positive.
In the meantime, a lot of us didn’t want to take the new test because we felt like something wasn’t right with it but was told that it was mandatory that we had to take it. Many of us felt like we were being treated like we were lab rats being experimented on. We even stopped accepting the food that was being brought to us by the officers in case of catching the virus.
Anyway, as of today April 2021, I’ve been COVID tested 33 times and I’ve taken both vaccination shots and they are still forcing us to take a COVID test which doesn’t make any sense.
PrisonPandemic, I can go on and on about the things that have occurred here since the pandemic hitted here but Imma end it there. I don’t know if what I’ve told you would help you with your story but it’s the truth. Thank you again for the letter you wrote. I gave a few of my friends you hook up. They wanted to write you.
Have a good day.
