HOUSTON — Houston police confirm there are more new coronavirus cases on the force in June than the entire month of May.
A Houston Police Department spokesperson said 16 officers tested positive this month, topping the 10 new cases last month. In April, there were 29 new coronavirus cases and another 12 back in March.
The new numbers come nine days after 60,000 people took part in a peace march downtown.
“Our officers, they don’t have the option to shelter-at-home, and they were right on the front lines and now we’re seeing the consequences of that,” said Joe Gamaldi, president of the Houston Police Officers’ Union.
Gamaldi said HPD is now ramping up testing at a mobile site set up at the George R. Brown Convention Center. It will focus on the officers who were mobilized to the large crowd of marchers, where not everyone was wearing masks.
“I would submit to you that we’re going to see a ton more of these cases,” Gamaldi said.
Infectious disease epidemiologist Catherine Troisi at UTHealth School of Public Health said it’s difficult to know the extent of virus spread in the crowd.
“Unless somebody had been isolated at home, only went to the march, and has been isolated since then, it’s hard to say really where somebody got the virus from,” Dr. Triosi said.
But she added the conditions downtown made it easier to transmit.
“The virus is just looking to jump from person to person,” she said. “The closer you are, and the more people you’re around, the more likely transmission is to occur.”
Gamaldi said nationwide, nearly 120 police officers have died from COVID-19.
“We’ve been very fortunate here that we’ve only had a couple of hospitalizations and I hope it stays that way, but this is a real threat,” he said.
Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo provided the following statement:
“Given that the recent working environment did not allow our workforce to social distance or practice ideal hygiene protocols necessary in a pandemic, the department believes it is vital to identify any COVID-19 positives in our agency. This will ensure the workforce can remain healthy in the coming weeks and months and have enough resources to be responsive to citizen needs. Therefore, HPD will be working in concert with the Health Department to offer testing. We have seen a slight increase recently in the number of employees testing positive and are working diligently to ensure first responders’ health so we can continue to serve. We thank Mayor (Sylvester) Turner and our sister agency for helping us keep our workforce healthy.”
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