ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. — The number of COVID-19 cases in the St. Louis County Police Department continues to grow.
On Friday, the department announced nine new cases in the last seven days. The release said the new cases included commissioned officers and professional staff members from the following divisions:
- Division of Criminal Investigations
- Division of Patrol
- Division of Special Operations
- Office of the Chief of Police
One of the cases was contracted outside of work but the department didn't know where the other staff members contracted it, according to the release.
The release said the nine new cases bring the total number of cases in the department to 117. The first case was reported on March 28, 2020.
The department said 95 of the 117 have employees to test positive have recovered and returned to duty.
"We've been very fortunate, this is a large organization and to say we have over a hundred people, while that is completely depressing and sometimes demoralizing," St. Louis County Police Department Chief Mary Barton said last week, when the department surpassed 100 cases. "It's also a relatively small amount of people in a large organization that are sick,"
Chief Barton credits county safety protocols like wearing masks, distancing and sanitizing for keeping the numbers low.
The St. Louis County Police Department has also been conducting roll calls outdoors and screening dispatch calls for COVID-19. No ride-alongs have been allowed since March.
COVID-19 cases within the department have popped up at different precincts. There has not been an outbreak within a single group of employees, so Chief Barton says filling the positions while people recover has been no different than regular vacation or maternity leave.
