This story was told by a person incarcerated at New Folsom.
UCI: How has the situation at your facility affected your loved ones?
Caller: Well, I don’t get visits. I communicate with my fiancé but we don’t communicate. I wrote her and let her know that I’m not going to be using the phones because I believe most of the virus is being spread through the phone. Because, you have a lot of dudes that come out here and get on these phones and they won’t disinfect it.
They’re coughing and sneezing while they’re on the phone and they won’t clean them. So, and I believe that’s how it’s getting spread, so I don’t use the phone period. This is the first time I’ve used the phone in about like almost two months.
UCI: Wow. How have you been coping with the crisis?
Caller: Well, me personally, it’s stressful because I have about five or six underlying medical conditions. I have sarcoidosis and neutropenia. And also the sarcoidosis attacks my white blood cells which also my T-cells so everything is low.
And they claimed that I had COVID in January of 2021 which was a lie and I told them. And when I had to do a hunger strike to get them to get me a rapid test. And when they gave me a rapid test, the rapid test was negative for COVID, period.
And what it is, is that when I have permanent lung damage because the sarcoidosis attacks my – mostly affected in my lungs and it affects the heart. I have heart conditions and just found out in September [redacted] that I was diagnosed with the sarcoidosis in the head and the brain also.
So these things affect me because they will not give us disinfectants, they will not give us the clean pads to clean out your toilet and stuff like that. You have to make your own way and like I clean my cell with shampoo and body wash. Because – and then every once in a while, I might find a CO that doesn’t mind – they ain’t really tripping on the disinfectant.
And so it’s like, you have to find your own way to keep your cell clean. And I have to be very extra careful in my situation because, with all my different conditions, you know, catching the coronavirus, I’m basically dead because I don’t have the immune system to fight it off.
And then it’s also stressful because, the doctors are trying to diminish my medical conditions, which I’m high risk medical and have all these different high risk conditions. And they’re trying to [unintelligible].
Then when I went to go do all my testing and all my labs and scans of my heart and my lungs and everything; they’re all are at normal and then they’re all way below out of range.
