Today's show is brought to you from Uncuffed, the KALW podcast recorded and produced inside California prisons.
It's sometimes hard to think back to what it was like at the beginning of the pandemic. It's been over two years now, and after constant news about vaccinations and new variants, those early days feel like a lifetime ago. But for many incarcerated people at San Quentin State Prison, they'll never forget those first few devastating months.
In June 2020, the state transferred infected inmates to San Quentin Prison. It quickly caused one the biggest COVID-19 outbreaks in a California prison. There was a lack of PPE. Social distancing was near impossible. People were locked in their cells for 24 hours a day, or housed in makeshift medical units in tents on the yard. No visitors. No programming. In that first outbreak, 2,000 incarcerated people were infected, and 29 died. Today, with this excerpt of the brand new season of Uncuffed, we'll hear a first-hand account of what it was like during that time.
You can find a link to the whole story at this link below.