![]() ![]() ![]() A potential COVID patient was en route to the infirmary. On March 30, Reginald Stephen, 58, a 300-pound man with back problems who walks with a cane and has high blood pressure, was in his cell feeling feverish. At that point, the guards would have been the only ones bringing the virus into the facility. My peers wondered why guards weren’t issued masks when our visits were suspended. It wasn’t even until the end of March, after the first prisoner had died of COVID-19, that guards were given the option to wear masks on duty. Prisoner porters mopped floors and wiped bars with germicide, which was soon upgraded to bleach and water. Social distancing? It was a recurring joke: bunched up on stairways and in corridors waiting to clear a metal detector bunched up on the flats waiting for clearance to leave the cellblock for meds or bathhouse. In the yards, guys congregated on the phones, lifted weights, spotted one another, jogged. To us prisoners, it all seemed like a face-saving attempt in a hopeless situation. Medical callouts and commissary runs were limited to groups of ten. Cellblock gyms and religious services were closed. All family visitation and access by nonessential civilians - teachers, professors, volunteers - were suspended. On March 14, when the coronavirus began spreading through Westchester, Sing Sing started taking preventative measures. ![]()
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