This story was told by a family member of someone incarcerated at Corcoran.
UCI: Okay and could you tell me about what the situation has been like there for your brother?
Caller: He’s, I mean, I’ve been in communication with him since he’s been there for a couple of years and it’s been extremely stressful the entire time. So, yeah, I mean it’s been stressful for both of us.
UCI: And you previously said that he contracted COVID, is that correct?
Caller: Yes.
UCI: Could you tell me a bit that experience from what you know?
Caller: Okay so, from what I understand is they were doing random tests I think once a week or every other week, and he had tested negative, but from what he’s telling me there’s a lot of situations to where if an officer sees somebody with symptoms or he believes somebody might have COVID, they’re automatically putting them in segregation away from population.
He also stated that they’re also doing it in a way to retaliate. So, even if somebody doesn’t have symptoms, they’re, you know, if they don’t want them in that facility, that yard, that building, they’re using that to get them rehoused at a different location in the prison.
And so that was his case, he’s been having situations with officers and they moved him to an area where they house inmates that have COVID. And he showed them, you know, medical documentation showing that he was negative, he refused, they still made it mandatory that he cell up with an inmate that had COVID. They were saying that they were told that he had it even after he, you know, showed them documents.
And so, he was forced into a cell with another inmate for about, I want to say, no longer than a week, and then they came and they rehoused him, told him they made a mistake, that he was negative and they retested him and then he showed up positive about a couple weeks later.
UCI: Mm-hmm, and how were his symptoms, were they bad?
Caller: Yeah, he still suffers from, I guess migraines, or something like that, he did lose a sense of taste for a while. He did recover that but he is still suffering from migraines that I believe he’s taking medication for.
