The manpower of the Royal Saint Lucia Police Force is being stretched as about 150 of its members are said to be in quarantine.
This comes on the heels of the Ministry of Wellness and Elderly Affairs claims that it is managing the fourth wave of COVID-19 in country.
According to the Ministry from July 25, 2021 there have been 4,433 cases at an average of 90 cases per day with 40 COVID-19 deaths with a case fatality rate of 0.9%.
“Females account for 60% of the deaths. The average age of the deaths is 66 years. At present we have 2,567 active cases in country. The daily infection rate for the past week was 67.9 per 100,000 per day and an average of 123.0 cases per day,” the Ministry stated.
It was Prime Minister Philip J. Pierre who yesterday disclosed the number of police officers in quarantine.
He said that there’s nowhere to put people when they are arrested.
“Only yesterday I got a report that a police station had to be closed or the shift drastically reduced because somebody was arrested with COVID and the whole station has to go into quarantine. There is no place to put people when you arrest them,” Pierre asserted.
He said that anytime a COVID-19 positive individual is arrested, the entire police squad has to go into quarantine.
“The police are stretched, some things they want to do they can’t – they simply don’t have the numbers and this is why we added another layer of enforcement which was the ticketing,” the PM explained, adding that the ticketing system will be in place very soon.