Before I start this post, let me say, I’m tired of writing about Covid19, but at the moment it is absolutely dominating every aspect of my existence.
I'm going to cut right to the chase here: The Department of Corrections (DOC and specifically the Airway Heights Corrections Center [AHCC]) is repeating every mistake made during the initial pandemic outbreak.
Omicron made its appearance here around December, perhaps earlier. The exact date is murky, but what's clear is exactly how poorly AHCC has responded to its subsequent explosion through the population.
At first, the few isolated cases were placed in quarantine. When that failed to stem the outbreak, the unit they spawned from (T-Unit) was placed on lockdown. And when THAT failed, they tested the entire incarcerated population and locked down the whole institution... FIVE days later.
During those five days, the only programming canceled were in-person visits. Four and a half out of six units continued going to school, to work, and any other place you'd avoid if you didn't want to co-mingle with potential plague bearers.
Then the tests came back and AHCC went into total lockdown.
Ok, not really. They locked down R-Unit on that day and then everyone else the day after. Since then, its been deja vu all over again.
Staff administered another round of tests.
Six days later, everyone who tested positive in L, M, and K (where I'm housed) went to N-Unit, the quarantine unit. To make room for all of them, they moved the N-Unit population to T and R Units. And to make room there, the moved THAT population to the gym!
Sorry, the "Alternative Housing Unit" or AHS.
But wait! The gym was already full of of positive cases from camp. Where to put them? Oh, down the hall in the classrooms. Where there's an old dog bathing facility to clean up at.
Three days later another round of testing occurs. We get the results four days after that. When do they shuffle the positive cases out? Well, a handful of them the next day. The rest? Oh, they stayed right here, alongside all of we negatives for three more days!
Now, they've spent all day shuffling people out of M-Unit (to who the hell knows?) to make room for the K-Unit positives AND the L and M guys they've shuffled in to THIS unit over the last two weeks!
I mean... Can you think of a better way to ensure the entire population gets infected? Am I missing something here? I don't think so. This is exactly what happened last time and it's exactly what's happening again. And since this is so very much a repeat of last year, we're likely only halfway through it.
The first time was, understandably, a learning experience. This time, its incompetence coupled with the inability to learn from the past.
Who's holding our keepers accountable?
Clearly, no one.