50 police officers fear for lives as senior quarantined

More than 50 officers stationed at the Butterworth police cluster offices are demanding  to be tested for the coronavirus after a colleague went into quarantine.

The woman, who is a senior officer in the cluster, fetched her son in Bloemfontein in late March but on their return to Butterworth he fell ill. Her son was informed that he had tested positive for the virus on Friday.

While officers who spoke to DispatchLIVE commended their colleague for coming forward to disclose her son's diagnosis and the risk she might pose, they are demanding that they be tested and placed in quarantine themselves.

They are also concerned that because they have been in contact with their colleague, in the event of her testing positive they might in turn transfer the virus to members of the public during the course of their duties.

The situation is compounded by the fact that international researchers have found that it takes on average five days for people to start showing symptoms of the virus.

DispatchLIVE understands the woman has not yet been tested.

The number of Covid-19 cases in SA had risen to 1,749 by Tuesday. Thirteen people have died. 

A former Eastern Cape health MEC, Dr Bevan Goqwana, is in total agreement that officers who have come into contact with the woman should be tested and placed in quarantine to  “save others” from contracting the virus.

Some of the officers, who cannot be named as they are not authorised to speak to the media, said they admired their colleague for “bravely” coming forward.

“She was honest enough to tell other members that her son tested positive. That was bravery and she told us she did not want to infect other members hence she was open about this,” one officer said.

But another member said it had been five days since the woman told them about her situation  and “we have not been told to go home”. 

A spouse of one of the officers told DispatchLIVE: “We have children and my partner's worry is that they were working with this member and now without screenings, this can come and affect us as families. The SAPS should act quickly and test these members.”

Another officer said: “One of our colleagues who stays in the officer's yard has flu-like symptoms. We were screened by health officials in the district on Monday but that is not enough. We need to be tested as a matter of urgency because we are at risk here.”

The officer said colleagues dealt with the public when cases were reported.

“We are trying to soldier on and work, but it's hard. We were told by management to wait 14 days to see if she has the virus or not. Should we spread it to other people as well then? We are working as essential workers.

“Our lives are at risk here and so are those of the people we serve. We are also running out of sanitisers, masks and gloves. I have been looking for a place where I can test myself.”

Goqwana said all officers who had been in contact with her should self-quarantine to stop spreading the virus.

“First those who met with her son should be found and be tested. She did the right thing to report this but now, what about her colleagues? They should be out of work for seven to 14 days. We need to help prevent the spread of this virus,” said Goqwana.

Provincial health spokesperson Sizwe Kupelo said the department had tracers in each district, whose responsibility was to follow up on every contact of a confirmed case.

“We have tracers. Once we get to know of a positive case, we go and trace the contacts of that person and do screening and where possible, testing. People who were in direct contact with that person need to put themselves in isolation.

“The number of contacts will be determined by the interviews and the visit of that tracing team and would have been informed scientifically by these trained tracers. We can't just thumbsuck that — we need to test the whole station,” he said.

Provincial police spokesperson captain Khaya Tonjeni said the DispatchLIVE's inquiry would be forwarded to the SAPS national office for further handling as “all Covid-19-related inquiries are centralised at our national office”.

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