What a difference a day makes…as of this morning, 4/21/2020 , all Keefe personnel are wearing masks.

Today’s news from Perryville.

Cleaning supplies:
Two liquid hand soap dispensers have been installed. Outside. One at each end of the yard. Not sanitizer – soap. A decent first step, however, there is no water available at the dispenser locations. Inmates get a handful of soap and then have to go back to their room/cell/unit to get to the water. Maybe this idea needs just a little more work.

On Saturday, 4/18 every inmate was issued a 5″ x 5″ thin, flimsy cloth. Think diaper for a Barbie Doll. Is it a rag? A mask? A reusable substitute for the ever-elusive toilet paper? No – it’s a cleaning supply! I challenge you to dig around and find the most worn out, whispy, handkerchief you can lay your hands on. Cut it down to 5″ x 5″ and tell us how good a cleaning job you can do with it. To make it a fair test you can’t use cleansers or sanitizers.

In the good news department, there has been a vast improvement with staff wearing masks. This has been reported for all units (except San Pablo – we are hearing no news from San Pablo.)

On the flip side – while guards are wearing their masks other companies whose personnel work inside the prison are not enforcing the same rules. Incredibly, the medical staff can be counted in this group. On Saturday at 11:58 am on San Carlos, two nurses were doing temperature checks on vulnerable inmates. One nurse was wearing her mask. The one actually taking the temperatures (the one in physical contact with inmates) was not. None of the LPN’s in medical are wearing masks.

As for the Keefe personnel (Keefe supplies and staffs the stores), only half are wearing masks and the 1 man who works the store serving 1400 people never wears a mask. (See update at the top pf this post.)

Apparently many inmates, in all units, have been taking down the names of guards who aren’t wearing a mask. This information is being passed to Donna Hamm, who in turn is sending this information to Channel 15 news.

We have received inquiries for more details about the cot delivery.
!. Yes, the tents are going back up.
2. It was National Guard trucks that delivered the 800 cots.

That’s it for today’s update. When we have more, you’ll be the first to hear it.