The State Government needs to answer why police weren’t given priority COVID testing support to help keep them at work, when they weren’t positive to the disease.
The thin blue line has been stretched further with reports police have been isolating at home for days awaiting COVID-19 test results that either never came or were delayed.
That’s a State responsibility to ensure the frontline emergency workers such as police had priority access to timely testing – whether it’s PCR or Rapid Antigen Tests (RAT).
The State Government has to fix this. They also have to answer how many police have been removed from duty for how long while awaiting tests that have been delayed or didn’t come and why they couldn’t get a RATs test?
The longer police are off the road in home isolation awaiting delayed test results for a clearance and unable to work, the longer their colleagues and the community bear the burden of that thin blue line copping greater pressure.
Now the State Government is moving away from PCR tests to RAT tests, they also must ensure police and emergency and health workers get priority access to RAT tests to keep these essential frontline services operational when they aren’t COVID-19 positive.
Of course, if they are COVID-19 positive, we need them to get well and stay home.
I have heard reports from a family of Sunshine Coast police waiting more than four days for PCR tests to only test negative and some have still not received their results. Now that RAT tests are being allowed as a quicker way to be tested, the State Government should make those available to this essential workforce and other emergency frontline emergency workers.
It is a time of great stress and distress for many. To have police off the road longer than necessary due to this failure of the State to support them, is not keeping the community safe.
