COVID outbreak impacts city police operations

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This article was published 24/04/2021 (1973 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

An outbreak of COVID-19 at the downtown Winnipeg Police Service headquarters and some districts has left dozens of officers and civilian staff isolating at home, and hampered the work of several units.

There are at least 14 people who have tested positive, while about 100 close contacts are off work because of it, the police union says.

“There have been one or two cases at a time throughout the pandemic, but this is the largest outbreak there has been,” Winnipeg Police Association president Moe Sabourin said Friday.

“It has sprung up in the last three to four days. We’ve had to close down entire units.”

Sabourin, who estimated about half of the people isolating are officers and half are civilian staff, said the units affected include courts, as well as police records and reports. Also impacted is the centre which allows officers to access information from the country’s central police database, including warrants for arrest.

“These are all very, very important areas,” he said. “An entire shift at the North End got sent home, because all were in contact with a positive COVID case.”

Sabourin said to counter the spread of the novel coronavirus, WPS is making sure shifts don’t overlap.

“There’s still enough resources to respond to emergency situations,” he said. “These are mainly support staff, but they are very important to the running of the service.”

WPS spokesman Const. Jay Murray said: “Like the general community we serve, (WPS) is experiencing increased COVID-19 numbers. We have provisions in place to ensure that emergency services are not impacted, and have no further comment at this time.”

Coun. Markus Chambers, chairman of the Winnipeg Police Board, said “all board members are aware” of the situation and are monitoring it.

Sabourin said it points to why police officers and civilian staff should have been vaccinated against COVID-19 weeks ago, instead of just being allowed to book shots in recent days.

“You can imagine the stress level has really heightened,” he said. “Can you imagine if the entire comm centre (which handles 911 calls) came down with it? We would be scrambling.”

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca