In this first-person account for New York Magazine, John J. Lennon recounts how an increasing number of his fellow prisoners tested positive for Covid. And then John himself was hit with a fever.
EXCERPT
On March 14, when the coronavirus began spreading through Westchester, Sing Sing started taking preventative measures. All family visitation and access by nonessential civilians — teachers, professors, volunteers — were suspended. Cellblock gyms and religious services were closed. Mess-hall seating was staggered. Medical callouts and commissary runs were limited to groups of ten. No masks, no hand sanitizers — not yet.
To us prisoners, it all seemed like a face-saving attempt in a hopeless situation. In the yards, guys congregated on the phones, lifted weights, spotted one another, jogged. 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. Prisoner porters mopped floors and wiped bars with germicide, which was soon upgraded to bleach and water. 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. My peers wondered why guards weren’t issued masks when our visits were suspended. Some of the guards wondered too. At that point, the guards would have been the only ones bringing the virus into the facility.