Ivan: So this is what social distancing look like inside of prisons. As you can see in the day room of the facility I’m at, and as you can notice there’s a number of inmates freely walking about in the day room. So all it takes is just one person in here to become infected with the Coronavirus, and it’s a wreck. Everybody’s going to be affected.
All it takes is for one person to come into this environment that’s infected and boom, you got a crisis on your hands. And my biggest concern is it’s not so much getting it from the prisoners, it’s getting it from the correctional staff. Well, I’ve been informed that they are being screened each day as they walk in. This is not one of those things where you can just simply ask if someone has symptoms and clear them to come into work into a dense-populated area.
Interviewer: If you started feeling some of the COVID-19 symptoms, how long would it take you to see a doctor?
Ivan: They have a nurse just visiting the building every day, and the problem with that is I think for most prisoners, they would be afraid to report that because it automatically is going to result to them being isolated in the hall. The commissary don’t sell nothing to jail. You hear me? In terms of disinfectant, as a matter of fact, they have limitations on the number of soap that you can buy.
I think you just answered the question to one of the biggest considerations. So on paper, it looks good when you look at what their protocols are for this, they’re talking about- they’re passing out extra soap, they’re doing extra cleaning, that they’re passing out disinfectants of this type and sort.
Yeah, that’s not the reality in here. This is what’s happening right now, inside the California Department of Corrections. We’re sitting ducks in here.