This story was told by a person incarcerated at Vacaville.
UCI: So, has it been better at all recently, I know some facilities are getting the vaccine, not all of them but—
Caller: Well, they’re giving out the vaccines and stuff, and me I refuse it because I already caught COVID, you know what I mean, at the last facility I was at, and they’re giving out the vaccine. But me, I’m scared to take it. Honestly, I’ll be straight up with you.
UCI: Yeah.
Caller: I don’t, I don’t know what you guys, what are you guys looking for, what do you guys want just, just random talk?
UCI: Just anything you’re willing to share about your experience. What you think they could have done differently, what you think they could have done better.
Caller: I think there are a lot of things they could have done better, like the way, the way I caught it, for instance, instead of housing us all together. They should have isolated some individuals to a different unit, like it took them, it took them 6 months to finally get it right for them to actually isolate them and then keep the ones that weren’t, ones that weren’t exposed to them separate, you know what I mean?
UCI: Yeah.
Caller: There’s a bunch of stuff, I don’t, I don’t know exactly what you guys want me to say, but it’s kind of, it’s kind of bad, you know what I mean? It still, it still is, you know, all they do is just sit on their ass, and we’re stuck in here, you know. All they do is keep us locked in that room, and there ain’t nothing else but to do, like today we barely got off on Wednesday quarantine and they’re barely letting us out to interact, you know what I mean? We lose, we lose our visits, we lose everything, you know?
UCI: Yeah, so I’m curious, have they been giving you guys stuff to clean? Do they clean?
Caller: Hell no, they, they keep their area clean, but they don’t give us nothing to clean.
UCI: Oh.
Caller: Yeah, they don’t give us nothing.
UCI: Yeah. It sounds like that would not be good and that would lead to a lot of people getting sick.
Caller: Yeah. So, so me, I keep myself clean but I use my shampoo and all that to clean my room and, that’s not even disinfectant or anything.
UCI: Yeah. Wow. What about other people that you are around? Do they try to get you guys to social distance? Do you guys have to wear masks?
Caller: Yeah, we wear masks and stuff but they, it ain’t no, there ain’t really no distance everyone’s hugging, everyone’s shaking hands. Everyone’s walking around, you know, even with the COs and everything.
UCI: Oh.
Caller: They come from different floors, communicate with each other. They think this all some type of little joke and shit in here.
UCI: Yeah, that can be really hard if people don’t take it seriously.
