This story was told by a person incarcerated at SATF (California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison).
Caller: Well, now there’s more, um, awareness you could say, proper ways to, hm, deal with situations and individuals in order to prevent COVID. Um, I first thought this thing, like anything, anyone on the street, in prison, people they don’t know the proper protocol, you could say. How to deal with it or prevent it, so, now that they do.
Like at first we had just basic one layer cloth mask, face mask. And now they pass out N95 masks, face masks. And things like that help for dealing with this.
A little more knowledgeable you could say, you know? Take the programs, we used to get yard everyday. Now it’s every other day, and only our building. So, they’re minimizing obviously the amount of people in one place at a particular time.
UCI: And is there anything that you think would make the situation at your facility better?
Caller: Make it better? I mean it’d be nice to get some visits, you know? From our family. From our friends. I know based on the condition, the situation, that might not be possible.
I mean we’re getting tested weekly for, uh, we’re getting COVID testing. At first they weren’t testing us. Matter of fact I even went through, I got quarantined once in another block, a different building, because I came in with one of the free staff, which was a physical therapist.
And I can show they think I had it, so they quarantined me just as precautionary, you know? Huh. But that was the beginning of the stage when they still didn’t know what they were doing obviously like they quarantined me and left my celly in the building, which I had been in my cell for about a week and a half or two weeks.
So he would have been exposed if that was the case. But I was the only one that was quarantined, so. It wasn’t as organized, or, you know?
UCI: Mhm.
Caller: But now they’re dealing with it a little better I guess you could say.
UCI: Yeah. Do you have any video visits at your facility?
Caller: Um, you know what? They just started ‘em not too long ago. I wanna say like around the holidays, maybe December or so? So yeah that is one option that has been provided recently, which is another plus, you know?
