15 percent of NYPD officers out sick amid coronavirus crisis: commissioner
More than 15 percent of the NYPD — or roughly 5,600 officers — are out sick amid the coronavirus pandemic, NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea said Tuesday.
Nearly 1,200 officers and other department workers have now tested positive for the potentially deadly bug, Shea said during a Q&A session streamed live from police headquarters via Twitter.
The city’s top cop noted that social distancing efforts to combat the spread of coronavirus have helped the NYPD, as more and more members call out sick.
“Some things that are helping us is nobody’s on the street,” Shea said, noting that there are no parades or protests happening amid the epidemic.
“That’s a huge positive,” said Shea, who added, “Our radio calls are actually down — the ones that get funneled to the NYPD.”
Those factors, the commissioner said, “are really kind of pulling us along through this crisis.”
According to the NYPD, 1,048 uniformed officers and 145 civilian members have tested positive.
Shea revealed that the NYPD has made an “unprecedented” move with thousands of uniformed and civilian members working from home.
“That’s been going on now for weeks,” said Shea. “If I took you on a tour of this building, you’d see offices that are empty. The work is still going on, but it’s going on remotely. It’s going on through conference calls to video conferences.”
The commissioner urged members of the force to stay home if they feel sick.
“Our sick numbers are really significantly moving up,” said Shea, adding, “I think that’s a good thing.”
“We don’t want anyone sick in the workplace working sick,” he said. “We need you to get better.”
Police sources said that the NYPD has not been tough on officers calling out sick amid the COVID-19 crisis.
In the past cops were supposed to call the sick desk two hours before their tour, but now many cops are calling right into their commanding officer to call out sick, sources said.
A cop source who recently called out sick said it was “easy as s–t.”
“The job is actually handling it better now and allowing us to call out, quarantine and get tested,” the source said.
During the Q&A session, Shea suggested that a special coronavirus testing site was open for first responders.
“I can tell you on the side we’re also working with the unions and the medical division and some outside people to try to boost up the testing available for our police officers — we do have a site right now open,” Shea said. “But we’re trying to boost up that capacity, so that we can get the answers for people that are concerned, so your families can get the answers.”
A high-ranking police source told The Post that the NYPD is in the “first phases” of opening several test sites for its officers.
Three to four sites will be located on Long Island and they are slated to be up and running by the end of the week, the source said.
Five NYPD members — one detective and four civilians — have already died as a result of coronavirus.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday that he would dispatch state police to backfill sick NYPD cops.
“We’ll do whatever we need to backfill, if we need state police I would do that,” Cuomo said.
Meanwhile, the NYPD and the New York City Police Foundation announced Tuesday the $500,000 purchase of 150,000 units each of masks, gloves and packets of hand sanitizer for the police department.
Additional reporting by Bernadette Hogan