Never mind that he shouldnt be in a federal prison at all.

Leonard Peltier, the Native American rights activist whom the FBI put behind bars decades ago without any evidence that he committed a crime , tells HuffPost that his facilitys prolonged COVID-19 lockdowns and failure to provide at least some inmates with booster shots has left him and likely others unbearably isolated and preparing for death.

Im in hell, Peltier said in a Friday statement, and there is no way to deal with it but to take it as long as you can.

Peltier, who is 77 and has serious health problems including diabetes and an abdominal aortic aneurysm, said fear and stress from the prisons intense coronavirus lockdowns are taking a toll on everyone, including staff. He described conditions like having next to no human contact or access to phones sometimes for weeks, no access to regular showers or substantial food, and not even the ability to look out a window or have fresh air.

Left alone and without attention is like a torture chamber for the sick and old, he said.

Peltiers facility, a high-security penitentiary in Florida called USP Coleman I, is currently one of 98 federal prisons at a Level 3 COVID-19 operational level, which means its COVID medical isolation rate is at the highest level . For the facilitys 1,335 inmates, this translates to no contact with other people within the facility and no visitation from anyone externally.

The Coleman facility has been in its latest COVID lockdown since Jan. 11, according to Peltiers attorney, Kevin Sharp. Its been imposing dayslong and sometimes weekslong COVID lockdowns dating back to March 2021. Some of the longer stretches were March 6-15, June 14-30, and Dec. 12-Jan. 4, said Sharp.

Peltier says its not just mentally excruciating to endure constant lockdowns. He said he and others on his cellblock still havent gotten their COVID booster shots. They should have been offered them by now; all people incarcerated in federal prisons gained access to the initial round of vaccines last May , which means its well past the six-month window for getting boosted to stave off potential serious illness or death.

In Peltiers case, he got his first COVID-19 vaccination shot in January 2021 and his second in May 2021, according to Sharp, which means he was due for his booster in November. Peltier asks the prisons medical staff every chance he gets when he and others in his cellblock will get their booster shots, said Sharp, and they always say they dont know.

People living in prisons are at a higher risk of contracting COVID-19 because of factors like being in close quarters, poor ventilation in old facilities and the fact that some prison staff arent getting vaccinated. But when lockdowns mean being denied human contact for weeks at a time and no details on when a COVID-19 vaccine booster will be available, the situation feels untenable for inmates like Peltier.

They are turning an already harsh environment into an asylum, he said.