This story was told by a person incarcerated at Chino.
Caller: I had caught COVID one time and that was back in, I caught COVID in December, around my birthday. Yeah. I caught COVID in December. And like, you know, it’s a regular quarantine and stuff and they, they separated me away from everybody else.
One cell, you feel me? And it was, one person per cell, but like, you know, they brought me back into another atmosphere where I can’t with the environment that I can catch COVID again. And, you know, I actually did catch COVID again. I had symptoms when I came back to this dorm and it was like, they brought me back to the same place.
And so, this dorm started, like everybody started catching COVID and stuff in here. And the dorm that I’m at right now, it was like a big argument or a big controversy to the people in here. Like, you know, some people in here that have years and they’ve been here for years, 10 years, 20 years.
So, when they were asked to leave to go to quarantine, most of them stood up, they said no. And everybody said no. And long story short, they won.
Like they won a little argument. They had the captain and then the sergeant coming here and all that stuff, like they all talked it out and they came to an agreement that they stay.
And like the people who didn’t have like the, like, people like us that didn’t have test positive for COVID yet, it was like, we were asked out, like, we couldn’t go anywhere. They put the whole dorm on quarantine and we couldn’t go nowhere. So, we were stuck in here with the people who did have COVID, like, you know, they didn’t do anything about it.
UCI: Gotcha. Wow, man. And what about the vaccination situation? What has that been like at your facility?
Caller: Like, some people, like, don’t want to get vaccinated. And I understand that because I haven’t even been vaccinated yet, but you know, they offer vaccinations and stuff like that. Like, with the vaccination part. Yeah. They, they like, you know, they offered it to everybody, you know, and they’re fair about that.
UCI: Mm-hmm. Okay, and you said that since they’re offering it to everyone, have they been providing information about the vaccine and ,like, telling you guys, like, what the side effects are or nothing like that?
Caller: Well, they give us a paper. Like, if you want to go through with it, they give you a paper and they show you all the side effects and stuff like that.
UCI: Oh okay, good, good, good. That’s good to hear. What about your loved ones? How has the COVID affected your loved ones?
Caller: Yeah. Well, my wife had just caught COVID like a week and a half ago, two weeks ago, she had to go off work. My brother and his baby’s mother caught COVID, like, it’s hitting him pretty hard, you know, honestly. And when I caught COVID, I couldn’t talk to nobody for like weeks.
And that was another thing. When I went to quarantine, I only got one phone call every 30 days. And it was like, you know, it’s it really, it really affected us.
UCI: Yeah. Wow, man, you said one call every 30 days. So, you know, I’m, I’m guessing it took like a pretty hard hit on your, like, mental and emotional health right?
Caller: Yeah, yeah. They put you in quarantine and they treated you like it’s the hole, you get one phone call every 30 days and you shower like two, three times a week. It’s like, you’re in the hole. Like you did something wrong.
