4 additional LAPD employees hospitalized with COVID-19 this week

Four additional Los Angeles Police Department employees were hospitalized with COVID-19 this week, but the four that were hospitalized with the virus last week were released and are recovering at home, Chief Michel Moore said Tuesday.

The department experienced a slight decrease in the number of new cases reported in the last week, with 45 personnel testing positive, compared to 52 the previous week. A total of 134 employees are at home recovering, an increase of 12 from the previous week, according to the LAPD.

So far during the pandemic, 2,759 LAPD employees have returned to duty after contracting the virus, Moore said. In the last week, 26 employees returned to work.

Moore told the Police Commission on Tuesday that mobile vaccination clinics will be deployed to each station starting as early as next Monday. Each station will have a clinic that runs for 20 hours per day, allowing night shift and day shift employees to get vaccinated. The clinic will stay operational for a two-week period at each station and then return 28 days later for employees to get their second dose.

“We continue to work with the city and are anxious to see guidelines developed and implemented that, as … Mayor Garcetti and others have indicated, will require all members of the organization to be vaccinated or frequent testing for the COVID-19 virus,” Moore said.

Los Angeles officials are hashing out the details of a possible policy that would require all city employees to show proof of COVID-19 vaccinations or weekly negative COVID-19 tests.

Last week, Moore told commissioners that a vaccinated LAPD employee who was hospitalized with the virus and his doctors believe that the vaccine saved his life. He had received the Moderna vaccine but contracted the Delta variant of the virus.

“As much as his hospitalization occurred and it was a serious and critical need for his recovery and he was in the ICU for a portion of time, he and the doctors are convinced that the vaccination ultimately saved his life in lessening the impact of the Delta variant,” Moore said during the Aug. 10 commission meeting.

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