Covid-19 wreaks havoc among police officers

There was a dramatic increase between July and August, to the number of police officers who tested positive for Covid-19.

“Despite our best efforts to keep the virus at bay by wearing protective equipment, sanitising our hands, vehicles and work stations and by maintaining social distancing while enforcing the law, over 14 000 of our members tested positive for Covid-19,” police minister Bheki Cele said during a recent briefing.

A total of 14 182 officers had tested positive for the virus.

The sharp increase was, however, not only noted in the number of infections but in deaths and recoveries as well.

“A total of 163 of our members have died from the virus while 9 563 have recovered,” Cele said.

“There’s no doubt these infections occurred in the frontlines,” Cele said.

He also commended officers for having executed their responsibility to serve and protect members of the public with “excellence”.

A month ago, the ministry’s spokesperson Lirandzu Themba told Rekord “only” 4 300 officers had tested positive for the virus.

Themba said they had lost 28 officers to the virus while 1 367 officers had recovered.

During the briefing Cele released crime statistics for the first quarter of the 2020/2021 financial year. He said 298 252 people were arrested and charged with contravening the disaster management act.

“Of the over 200 000 people, a total of 181 579 were released on a warning to appear in court, while 28 337 were found guilty of violations which related to liquor, gatherings, transport and business.

The police fraternity, however, was not the only to be marred with officers contracting and dying from the virus.

Earlier this month, health minister Zweli Mkhize said his department “noted with concern”, the increasing number of allegations of healthcare workers contracting the deadly coronavirus.

Mkhize said this was allegedly due to a lack of or poor quality personal protective equipment (PPE).

“We have even received reports that some may be dying after being infected due to the lack of sufficient PPE or due to sufficient PPE not being provided and/or failure or neglect by management to adhere to prescribed workplace safety protocols,” he said.

“We want to state that this cannot be tolerated.”

During the briefing, Mkhize said the latest number of healthcare workers who had been infected with the virus stood at 24 104 with 181 deaths recorded as of 2 August.

“This means that the national infection rate of healthcare workers stands at 5% of all confirmed cases,” he said.

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