“We’re being thrown to the wolves” one officer said, after 200 New York police officers tested positive for Coronavirus.
Critics have said that Trump is not doing enough to combat the spread, and it is pretty shocking how 200 key workers have been diagnosed with the illness in very close proximity.
This is a whole 7% of the New York police department, and they’re all on sick leave currently.
“We don’t even have the right protective gear. They gave us a box of gloves and surgical masks that don’t stop the virus. We’re exposed.” Said one officer. Others have said they have seen people re-using single use masks over the space of two weeks.
New York City has now become the centre of the outbreak in the US, with cases currently doubling every 3 days and over 15,000 confirmed cases at the time of writing. (Despite there probably being much more unconfirmed cases).
The mayor of NYC has given a statement and said he will begin “spreading the message, telling people to break it up, move along, no lines tight together in a grocery store, no grocery stores full up.” But others believe this is too little, and too late.
One police officer is quoted as telling Vanity Fair that “One guy had symptoms but was not tested because they’re only testing people with fevers,” showing a great lack of care on the Cities part; they’re clearly not doing enough to combat the spread.
Even if the virus doesn’t cause significant damage to you, you can spread it to someone else who will be damaged by its effects, and you can even be left financially damaged by it, with one woman paying $34,000 for a hospital stay due to Coronavirus, definitely something not everyone is able to pay.
Other police departments across the country are being hit by the virus, too. As on Wednesday, a Detroit police captain became the second member of his department to die from coronavirus.
