This story was told by a person incarcerated at Solano.
Caller: Well, they’re – they’ve quarantined a few places, as far as like that – laundry and optical. And then, if a guy in like one of the dorms catches – I guess, if he tests positive, they quarantine – they send that whole dorm out to the gym or you’ve got to settle for quarantine. But this, to me, has been run kind of ragged, though.
The whole process of what they’re doing, as far as quarantine, is kind of – it’s not really keeping people away from each other. And then, the tests they’ve been running, it’s like they say somebody’s positive, but, then, come to find out that they weren’t positive at all.
UCI: That sounds pretty difficult and a bit stressful.
Caller: Yeah, it does. And, where like – where I work at – I work in laundry And we have stuff coming in from San Quentin. And, at first, you know, the guys that handled it right off the truck, they weren’t even wearing hazmat suits.
But, now, they got them wearing hazmat suits when it comes through. You know?
UCI: Yeah. That would be scary. That has to be a scary sight in itself.
Caller: Oh, yeah. That’s, you know, dealing with San Quentin and hearing about what’s going on over there. You know?
UCI: Have you had people test positive there and quarantine?
Caller: Well, to me, I mean what they – they’ve really been kind of loose when it comes to really admitting if somebody tests positive.
Like, where I work at, like I say, laundry, they quarantined our whole job site and put us in the gym on the Level 3 side. Because they thought somebody might have tested positive. Then, come to find out, the guy didn’t actually test po- they – I don’t know – they saw some kind of false positive – negative – something they’re doing, where they’re saying a guy is testing positive. Then, when it comes out, he didn’t test positive at all. But guys are being – some guys are being inconvenienced by getting quarantined in the gym.
You know? They’re moving all our property over there. Stay over there for ten to fourteen days. You know?
UCI: Yeah. And, with what’s going on over there, what kind of troubles you the most or concerns you the most?
Caller: Well, what it really is, like they had my building on quarantine. And quarantine, you know, is just staying in. But they had us going to the kitchen, where we’re running into other inmates. You know what I’m saying?
If we’re supposed to be quarantined, you know, you would think we wouldn’t run into nobody else. You know? So they had us going to the kitchen to eat. You know what I’m saying? But, then, the staff – sometimes, the staff – they’re not respecting the part of wearing a mask, when, you know, when, in actuality, they have the greatest chance of bringing it in to us if we’re not going anywhere. You know? To me, they don’t take the mask serious. You know? As far as, you know, they’ll tell us, you know, “Hey,” if somebody has their mask hanging too low, “Put your mask on.” You know?
But they’re not wearing their mask all the time, neither. You know?
UCI: Yeah. That must make you nervous. Because they’re the ones …
Caller: Yeah.
UCI: … who are going to bring it in.
Caller: Yeah. That’s the whole thing, you know, a lot of us talk about in here. You know? We know we’re not going anywhere. I haven’t went outside these walls. You know? And then, one thing they do do, if a guy goes outside to an outside hospital and he stays overnight, then, they quarantine them when they come back. But, if you just go over there for the day and you come back that same day, then, they’ll bring you back to the building. You know?
UCI: And has COVID really interrupted your normal life there? I mean it sounds like it has a bit.
Caller: Yeah. Because, where I work at, right now, since we were – see, my building, we were on quarantine. So a few of us that work in the laundry, we had to go to work within the last two weeks. And then, as far as the program goes, it’s – the canteen is getting kind of – where we go shop and buy our food at – it’s kind of messed up.
Because, one of the staff members at the canteen had came up with COVID. So they shut the canteen down for [unintelligible]. But the canteen’s running a little slower. You know? Our program, as far as how they run, dinner is a lot slower. Everything get slowed down. You know? You kind of expect that, because you see it happened in the outside world, too. You know?
