This story was told by a person incarcerated at San Quentin.
Caller: They said – they said that it was, like, 29 people that passed away.
And one officer when that guy passed away, the officer, the sergeant, I was in that unit. But I moved over here, like, probably about because I thought it was like – yeah, I thought like – I guess – I guess I felt that they had this under control in this unit, but when I got over here, it’s almost the same. The fact that it was taking place over there, it’s just not making sense, can’t you hear all this noise? Supposed to be a quarantine. It’s supposed to be a quarantine that, like, just like – like disinfected. They don’t pass out disinfectant.
They say we supposed to be keeping the place clean. They said we’re supposed to be social distance, but they – they making it almost like how many [unintelligible] that you have a cellie, a cell mate, and how can you tell me I have to be social distanced when you insisting that I have a cell mate. Fortunate enough that I don’t – I don’t have a cell mate. They tried to give me one last night. But they are insisting that you have a cell mate. At one time it was going, but right now, they was insisting that if you tested negative, you have to go into a cell with a person that’s got positive.
But then they call it resolved. They got a new language, they say it resolved, they kind of got passed, but, you put a person that – that you say is resolved and after 14 days he didn’t – he didn’t get sick or he didn’t die, so they insist that he go into the cell with a guy that’s tested negative and the guy after being tested negative, they’re not even allowed to put a little work that we’re doing around here, the negative guy is not even allowed to work. So they were, like, pressuring people that’s not negative saying, okay, they can’t go out, they got to be locked up because they’re negative. It’s, like, crazy. That’s crazy.
UCI: Yeah, that – that is. So do you feel like it’s being handled differently now than it was at the beginning of the outbreak?
Caller: No, because it’s not being – it’s not handled – it’s almost about the same because when it was –
UCI: Okay.
Caller: – first started this, they – they tested. They tested, like, there was this lieutenant that came positive, and – but he had tested positive; right? But like now, they go around and they say, okay, they going to – they going to just lock this whole place down.
They’re going to test all the staff, they’re going to swab all the staff and find out if the staff don’t have it. Like – like when they came down and testing us, they pulled us out, they tested. But like now, they don’t even know how to – how this [unintelligible] being airborne, [unintelligible] how much we know about it, but now they’re testing staff almost weekly. But they only testing us once. I – I haven’t been tested since. And I’ve been requesting to be tested and they’ll say okay, we’re going to test you. We’re going to test your blood pressure and your temperature.
Right. Just like that’s kind of like irrelevant, because if I was sick and I couldn’t breathe, I would probably been on [unintelligible] about this, right, you spending all this – why are you spending this time coming by twice a day in the morning and afternoon taking my temperature and my oxygen because if this was a problem then someone would already know about this if I can’t breathe. See, but this is – this is all – this is all the things that they’re doing in here that seem like – it makes it – it gives the appearance that they’re doing something, but they’re really not.
I mean, it’s just like, I mean, just pay attention to, like, around December and January, it’s going to get so bad in here because nobody’s doing anything. They’re not really telling us anything. They – they just [unintelligible] announce, like, misinformation misinformation has become, like, weaponized where you where you denying us all –
So you in line, almost 80 to 90 percent of the population you saying that they are not critical workers, so they can’t go to work.
Just enough people just to make administration kind of like function, give the impression we got this under control, but they don’t have it under control. People in here today from what I understand, they from Sacramento, they went up there and they was just looking around with their pens and papers and stuff like this, but, like, they just kind of like a [unintelligible] because tomorrow is supposed to be the last day for the people that brought the lawsuit that the court said, okay they got to reduce the population by half by tomorrow.
But like now, that’s not happening because they trying to insist now that you sign a paper to be transferred. How can people sign, that goes against [unintelligible] to another institution that’s kind of like – that’s kind of like infested with this disease to – to another institution, but they still give us a paper saying I’m going to – I’m going to leave. But why would you leave because they just going to just assisting the administration to do the solution like we got this under control. I’m not going to leave.
I’m going to stay here, but I’m not going to catch it because I’m positive about I’m not going to catch this virus, but I’m just saying is that the guys that’s going to work and I’m not – I’m not really mad about it. I just I don’t understand it. But they are going to work, if you don’t go to work, then, like, they got to work, and if they got to work, then they going to figure something out because they don’t like to work. [unintelligible] outside catering company was coming in and they was, like, feeding us over here. So, like, those guys are so – I mean, they are, like, so just like they can’t stay in a cell for, like, 24 hours.
They saying we want to come out and work, so like now they stop feeding us from the catering service. They go back to this garbage that they feed us in the kitchen. They doing it right now. Yeah, that’s what’s going on right now.
UCI: What would make the situation better at your facility?
Caller: Being forthcoming. I mean, being – being, like telling us what happening. I more information on some of these – these various channels that I watch I get a lot of information from this.
And every time I see something concerning or something, I just stay here and I might just, like, you know, get what I can out of it. But like here, it’s almost, it’s like misinformation is just like a weapon. They won’t tell us anything. They put out these little memos occasionally like twice a month, something like this, or every two weeks. They will give you some, like, vague information, they will give you some information say, okay, we have – we have, like, no positive cases. But, like, that’s a lie because just last week you have five cases in this building.
But the – the little report card say, well, okay, we have no – we no have positive cases, active cases, and we have 2,000 resolved cases. But, like, resolve is just saying that I’m not sick. It doesn’t – it doesn’t imply – it doesn’t imply that I’m not making other people sick or someone hasn’t made me sick. It’s been resolved because – resolve don’t mean that you good. In like six months from now we might just drop dead. So –
So that’s – that’s where we at.
