LOS ANGELES (KNX) — City officials caution a potential delay in response times as hundreds of first responders called in sick this week after testing positive for COVID-19.
More than 400 Los Angeles Police Department officers and 200 L.A. City firefighters reported testing positive for COVID amid a surge of new cases in Southern California attributed to the quickly-spreading Omicron variant.
Just a little more than 200 firefighters missed their shifts Tuesday, leading to an incremental increase in response times to emergencies, according to NBC Los Angeles.
"We will have fewer resources to respond," City Fire Chief Ralph Terrazas told the station. "Therefore, we're going to have slightly longer response time."
The LAPD was facing similar issues after 416 police officers reported they were out due to COVID along with 89 members of the LAPD’s support staff, though officials tell NBC L.A. that the department is still meeting staffing requirements throughout the city without a disruption to core services.
“The department is prepared to make adjustments to our staffing, including the reallocation of human resources in the event it becomes needed, however we are not at that point,” Capt. Stacy Spell told the outlet.
Terrazas, however, said the call-outs are causing an “enormous amount of stress” on the fire department's workforce to fill those vacancies.
"We have a large surge capacity under normal circumstances. But I think we're using up that capability to surge because we have so many people out who are positive with COVID right now," he told NBC L.A. "And I'm seeing our firefighters less willing to work as much overtime as they used to, I call it COVID fatigue."
The city’s workforce has a vaccination rate of 80.5%, and as of Tuesday, 43 fire employees and a few more LAPD employees had been removed from duty for protesting the city’s vaccination mandate, according to the outlet.
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