Police functions unaffected by thousands of cop infections

“Stations have been closed for brief periods but this has not adversely affected the business of the day,” police ministry spokesperson Lirandzu Themba told Rekord Centurion on Thursday, adding in some instances, the police’s service delivery was “not at all” affected.

Scores of police stations, not only in Pretoria, but throughout the country, continued to close their doors to the public on a daily basis, for the purposes of deep-cleaning and decontamination.

“Various stations across the country were closed for this purpose ranging from 6 to 24 hours at a time and reopen,” she said.

However, Themba could not confirm the number of police stations in the country which had been affected since the national lockdown was effected in March.

Some of the latest police stations to close for deep-cleaning and decontamination purposes in the city included Brooklyn, Garsfontein, Mabopane, Atteridgeville, Olievenhoutbosch and Laudium.

Other affected police stations included Brakpan, Vosloorus, Randfontein, Orlando, Etwatwa and Nigel, Randburg and Elsburg in Johannesburg.

Numerous other police stations underwent the same fate in the neighbouring provinces of Limpopo, Mpumalanga and the Free State along with the Northern Cape and Western Cape.

“The procedure is that when a station is closed down, the community service centre then moves to a mobile unit situated next to the affected station or members continue their work in a nearby building or offices that have not been affected inside the station that do not need cleaning,” Themba said.

Since some police stations have been closed and since reopened, more than 20 officers had lost their lives to the deadly virus.

“SAPS has so far lost 28 members to Covid-19, while 4 300 officers have tested positive for the virus. Of those, 1 367 have recovered,” she said, adding the Western Cape – currently the country’s epicentre of the virus – had recorded the highest amount of cases.

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