ST. LOUIS — For the first time since the coronavirus pandemic began, St. Louis' Director of Public Health revealed Thursday how many city employees have tested positive for disease.
In all, 31 St. Louis employees have tested positive for COVID-19, Dr. Fredrick Echols said during Mayor Lyda Krewson's press conference.
Echols comments regarding the city's numbers of affected employees come after weeks of repeatedly denying requests for information about how many public employees have tested positive for the virus, citing privacy laws.
So what changed?
Krewson's spokesman Jacob Long said city leaders, including Echols, consulted with outside attorneys, epidemiologists, experts on the federal Health Information Protection and Privacy Act, or HIPPA as its commonly known, along with city attorneys to determine how to be transparent about the health status of city employees without violating federal privacy laws.
According to those experts, public entities can share information about employees that will not identify them if they work for departments with 500 or more employees, Long said.
That's why the police department is the only department city officials would specify because it employees more than 1,200 people.
Ten police employees have tested positive, Long said, but he would not say how many were civilians and how many were officers. Police union leaders have said eight officers have tested positive for the virus.
But it remains unclear what other city departments have employees who have tested positive.
About 130 city employees have requested time off to quarantine themselves after fearing they had been exposed or due to recent travel, but more than 80% of them have already returned to work, Long said.
City officials have taken heat over their refusal to release information about employees as other governmental agencies have been more forthcoming.
St. Louis County Executive Sam Page revealed this week that three park rangers have tested positive for the virus, so he had to shutter the county's parks because there are not enough rangers to ensure everyone is adhering to social distancing.
But Page has not said how many county employees have tested positive.
St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar named a police officer who tested positive for the virus and recently returned to work as well as made him available for interviews with reporters.
The North County Police Cooperative has announced that one of its officers has the virus, but has not named him.
Long said he cannot speak for other governments and how they are handling the release of information regarding their employees.
"All I can say is we've gone to significant lengths to protect the health, privacy and safety of our workers," he said. "We also wanted to be thoughtful and mindful of having enough cases so that no one was singled out and immediately identifiable."