This letter was written by a person incarcerated at Norco.
Thank you PrisonPandemic for reaching out. Many of us have stories to tell about how we are coping with COVID-19 while incarcerated.
March of 2020, while in HVAC class, the instructor told us that the Governor put all prisons statewide on a modified lockdown. Due to COVID-19 some highly contagious virus in China. All of us figured we was safe behind the wall, away from society. Which was true for about two months, until we heard about an outbreak in another area of the prison.
Then they turned a building next to ours into a COVID isolation dorm, where inmates are housed for 14 days and moved back to the main population. They moved two inmates from the isolation dorm to ours, which had been COVID free. At first, everyone kept their distance from them, even though they recovered from COVID.
One person started hanging out with them by drinking and eating. After awhile, he was the first one from our dorm to have COVID. It’s all dorm living. So we all tested next. A few people have and there would be moved due to COVID detection. Two days later they called 20-something bunks, about 30-something people, many of whom I’ve dealt with on a daily basis, even from my bunk.
Within a few weeks the dorm went from about 80 to 26. It’s stressful being extra clean and careful to wipe down the phone, using a towel to touch surfaces used by others. Family struggling with loss of work and a family member getting sick.
I’m at medical risk with heart disease so I submitted papers for early release. And it wasn’t granted because I am a violent offender. With only 25 of us left in the dorm, we were moved to another to make room. Our dorm was to be turned into a COVID recovery dorm of 100 inmates. The outbreak was very bad at the time touching every part of the prison.
The new dorm was filled with people who had recovered or never been sick with COVID. For about two months, no sickness. Then a correction officer came to work and got most of the dorm sick. This time I wasn’t so lucky. At night, I was woken up by my own coughing and heard plenty more coughing from others. I tested in December. COVID was not detected. I knew I was sick, headache, running nose, body sore. They moved about 20 to the COVID isolation dorm.
We tested again. I was moved to the COVID isolation dorm because COVID-19 was detected in my body.
This dorm was being used for months to isolate the infected inmates but had been closed for a few weeks due to the cases dropping. Once there, it was dirty and cold. During my time there, there would be no heat and correction officers would leave the door open at 10:00 and 5:30 during shift change, with the wind blasting us in first row of bunks!
One of us would had to get up and close the door. Almost forgot, had to take a lot of cold showers. It seems symptoms worsen. No laundry exchange. Twice a day nurses came and checked our vitals and would make sure we got cough drops or aspirin.
Eventually, I was happy to be away from the building of sickness. Once we got to the new dorm, a correction officer that was working in the COVID positive dorm was doing overtime there. Next day he tested positive and the weeks following it has hit this everyday. People are being taken out and the saga continues.
Thank you and God bless.
