Newly compiled statistics revealed that in 2020 and 2021, more than 66 percent of all law enforcement deaths resulted from COVID-19.
The report comes from the Officer Down Memorial Page, which claims that more law enforcement officers died from the virus than from every other cause combined since the pandemic hit in early 2020.
In 2020, 245 officers died from COVID more than from gunfire, automobile crashes, and other illnesses, The Hill reported.
“It’s taken a definite toll,” Vernon Stanforth, sheriff in Fayette County, Ohio, and president of the National Sheriffs’ Association, told ABC News. “Anytime there’s a line of duty death there, it impacts the entire agency and the entire law enforcement community.”
This year, 228 law enforcement deaths have resulted from the virus out of the 356 death total.
Executive Director of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial, Patrick Montuore, told Bay News 9 that the group had to establish a special task force to help determine if officers “suffered from the effects of COVID based on their actions and duties.”
Montuore said last year’s death toll was the highest it has been in 50 years—calling the virus a “silent killer” that was still on the offensive.
“It’s climbing at a time when it should be decreasing with the knowledge, the expertise, the amount of training and education,” he added.
The New York Times reported that some police unions are fighting vaccine mandates despite the death toll related to COVID.
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