“What happened — what’s happening — it can really happen anywhere, particularly in an overcrowded prison, which unfortunately is the norm,” said Dr. David Sears, a physician and professor of medicine
Days into the outbreak, the prison has grown increasingly chaotic, inmates and others say. Some among San Quentin’s death row inmates, in a secluded part of the prison, are infected, according to advocates for inmates. A number of older prisoners have hung handwritten signs outside their cells that read “Immune Compromised” so that guards will wear masks around them. Other inmates refuse to leave their cells out of fear of catching the virus, according to an inmate, and in recent days, guards have been heard screaming over their radios, “Man down!” after sickened inmates were unable to stand up.
The conversation has been dominated by talk of death.
“I don’t want to see them die,” Rahsaan Thomas, a 49-year-old inmate said of some of the older prisoners in a telephone interview. “I don’t know if I’m tough enough to survive Covid.”
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said in a statement that it was very concerned about the surge in infections in San Quentin, adding that prison workers had increased testing among inmates and had limited the number of transfers between prisons.
“Public safety is our top priority, as is the health of our community,” said Dana Simas, a spokeswoman for the agency. Workers had begun to build “air-conditioned tent structures” at the San Quentin prison, she said, as officials work to determine the best use of spaces for housing and medical triage.