This story was told by a person incarcerated at Vacaville.
UCI: How has the COVID situation been at your facility?
Caller: I just recently got up here, but the one I just left, it had an outbreak.
UCI: Okay. Can you, like, describe that to me? How was that like?
Caller: Well, basically, you know, it got to the inmates through staff members because we ain’t out there where the outbreak is at. So, the only way us inmates can catch it, is through the staff. And they let us go out to yard, but we – they tell us to do the same thing y’all do out there on the street.
Stay six feet apart, wear your masks, and wash your hands. So, dudes will be trying to do that, but everybody don’t follow the protocol. So, now we have a situation where, you know, people are being exposed, and people are scared. People don’t know what to expect.
You know, and it’s having a toll on our mental because we’re already stressed out being in the situation that we’re in.
UCI: Yeah.
Caller: Because being locked up, not having our family visits, the letters coming late, stuff like that, you know?
UCI: I understand.
Caller: So, it’s taking a toll on us, and, you know, a lot of fights have been breaking out behind that. I’m on the SNY unit, and that’s basically protective custody.
So, fights really don’t break out in the units, but a lot of have been breaking them out because this epidemic, you know, it’s stressing us out.
UCI: Yeah.
Caller: You’ve got to have cellmates, and if their cellmates ain’t following protocol, like washing their hands and stuff, and they’re going out to the yard being exposed, wanting to kick it with their friends and stuff, then they want to come back in the cell, not washing their hands and stuff like that. You know, they’re exposing you to it.
UCI: Yeah.
Caller: So, it’s a whole lot that go into it. And, I mean, like, I wrote y’all two letters. Hasn’t nobody wrote back, though.
