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COVID-19 accounts for nearly half of all police deaths

A friend points out this year's stats for line-of-duty deaths among police officers:

Deaths from COVID-19 nearly equal all other causes combined. And yet news reports repeatedly list police as one of the occupations most resistant to vaccination.

Policing is dangerous work, and the last thing we need is to double the number of deaths they already suffer. So please: skip your next day at the range and go get vaccinated instead. Your family will thank you.

35 thoughts on “COVID-19 accounts for nearly half of all police deaths

  1. veerkg_23

    Much of the problem we have with policing is one of personnel. It's the beat cops, the trainers, the supervisors, the sergeants. That's why "police reform" - an ongoing of 20 years now - doesn't yeild much by way of positive results. You're always fighting against the tide.

  2. akapneogy

    Covid-19 death rate nearly ten times that due to heart attacks. How does that compare with that for the general population?

    1. veerkg_23

      It's about 1 to 2 for the "general population". Aka, there are 2 deaths from heart attacks for every death from COVID.

    2. Jerry O'Brien

      I guess "in the line of duty" wouldn't apply to most heart attacks, but covid infections are assumed to result from exposure while on duty.

    1. cld

      Police unions, like the Republican party, are criminal protection rackets.

      Would you expect them to do the right thing?

      1. Bardi

        Sometimes I think the purpose of the "police unions", in general, is to keep the requirements low, in order to allow the hiring of Barbradys everywhere.

      2. iamr4man

        They used to advocate for protecting their members by requiring department to provide bulletproof vests. How ironic is that?

  3. aaall1

    Fishing, logging , trucking, farming and ranching, roofing and other construction trades are among occupations that are way more dangerous then policing. Refusing to get vaccinated is probably a good proxy for far right wacko. Fire them and hire replacements smarter.

    1. Bardi

      The police interact on a personal basis with, generally speaking, the parts of the population that either will not or cannot properly care for their own health. As a result, they should carry a full history of vaccinations, at a minimum.

    1. rational thought

      For once, maybe we are making a similar point.

      Policing is a more dangerous profession than average, but not by that high an amount. And much less than most of the public would think from watching the news and cop shows on tv.

      When you consider just how many police officers there are, and the number of interactions with the public, the number of both police deaths on duty and the number of people killed by police is really not all that high.

      And this misperception becomes most apparent when comparisons are being made.

      And Kevin is using that misperception to make an unjustifiable point. The only reason why this makes it seem as if there are a really high number of covid in line of duty deaths is that it is being compared to other in line of duty deaths that are misperceived as higher than reality.

      I also object to the implication that the reason why police should be vaccinated is to reduce their deaths. If all the vaccine did was to reduce your own risk, then that should be a personal choice and no reason to condemn anyone who chose not to be vaccinated.

      The argument should instead be about whether police have an extra duty to get vaccinated in order to not spread the virus to someone else who they interact with in the line of duty.

      Even if police covid deaths were much higher than for others, that itself would not argue to me that they should have to get vaccinated. What would be more relevant is how many died who caught covid from a police officer.

      1. azumbrunn

        Those two things, protect someone's life and protect the lives of people who interact with that someone are not contradictory, they support each other.

        1. rational thought

          Sure.

          But wanting to protect someone is not a reason to force them to do something that they do not want to do. While protecting others, an "externality " in economic terms, might be.

          If all the vaccine did was to protect that person, and they had the same chance of spreading the virus whether or not vaccinated, then clearly that should be their choice and if they make a bad decision, it is on them.

  4. cld

    I've been reading that the one thing that would motivate the recalcitrant to get vaccinated would be vaccine mandates.

    This fits in exactly with authoritarian psychology where the only respectable view is backed up by an overt or implicit threat of force. Social conservatives will do nothing that isn't selfishly motivated and abusiveness naturally speaks to that.

    1. rational thought

      Do you not see the irony here in your post?

      Seems you are arguing for a vaccine MANDATE while blaming the ones you want to coerce for being authoritarian. Sort of like blaming slavery on the slave because they will not work in your field without being coerced.

      And you are just incorrect that selfishness is a big factor in vaccine reluctance from conservatives. You clearly do not know many or talk to them. You can ascribe it to ignorance, being misinformed, reluctance to be coerced into anything, etc. , but the motivation for the hard line conservative vaccine resistance is not selfishness.

      However, that is a big factor for the greater vaccine resistance among the young.

      1. cld

        No, you're entirely confused at all points.

        I am saying a mandate is the only solution that will seriously affect vaccine participation in a sub-population who will respond to nothing else.

        If there is some other approach that would produce a quicker and more fulsome vaccination among them no one has yet found it.

        As to selfishness . . . I cannot believe you are serious, though you do give that impression, and you may even think you are.

        1. rational thought

          Yes I am serious. Selfishness is not one of the things that makes a conservative more likely to be vaccine resistant. Yes, it is a factor for some conservatives possibly, but bot more than it is for some liberals. And actually would say it is a bigger factor for liberal vaccine resistance in my discussions.

          The only person for whom selfishness would be a factor is someone who does believe that the vaccines work the way the "experts" say. And the root of the greater vaccine resistance among conservatives comes largely from those that simply distrust the establishment so much that they do not believe that the vaccines actually work. It is not that they do not care about the community , they do not think getting vaccinated will help the community.

          And I would say there are two levels of distrust. One just does not believe that vaccines work at all. The other accepts that can work but distrusts the orthodox establishment position on comparing risks and benefits and thinks the risks outweigh the benefits.

          The real unpersuadables are in the first group and there is no convincing because they have no trust of anything being said. There scepticism is not based on rationality.

          The second group has some arguable positions and I can see why some doubt accepting everything they have been told. Here selfishness may play a role as they accept that there are vaccine benefits ( which accrue some to the.vaccive taker and some to the community) but all vaccine risks are in the vaccine taker. So they could be deciding that their personal risks outweigh their personal benefits and ignore the extra community benefits.

          I have heard this sort of anti vaccine argument mostly from non conservative vaccine resistors. And almost all young where the vaccine cost might really be higher than vaccine benefit, looking just personally. But honestly, I have not found that many are just callously disregarding the community. Many just are not thinking that far.

          And what has hurt there is that the public messaging has been so focused on the personal benefits of the vaccine ( not getting sick or dying) and not enough on the community benefits. And that has been a failure and caused by attitudes like yours assuming that they are just selfish.

          If the vaccine message, especially to the young, conservatives and minorities, had emphasized the community benefit in stopping the spread, it would have been more effective. For young conservatives especially, they are more likely to be persuaded that way than for young liberals. For one, young conservatives tend to be more family oriented than liberals and the community most are really interested in protecting is their family. Another is that they are more rural. If you live in a town of 5,000 and know everyone you pass by in the grocery store, it is a lot harder to dismiss a concern you could give them a disease, as compared to shopping in a city where nobody there you know personally.

          If the message to young vaccine semi sceptics was that, even if you do think that the vaccine cost outweighs the benefits for yourself, you should still get it for the good of the community, that really would have worked better. And I have found that the vaccine costs that the young are concerned about are mostly the side effects lasting for a few days, not those unusual dangerous reactions that have been overplayed.

          1. cld

            I would say that most of what you're observing is selfishness, just well rationalized, and, in the case of non-conservatives, projected.

            In fact I think you're getting most of this quite backward.

            I can't imagine anyone who is serious could be unaware of the community benefits of themselves being vaccinated at this point and that they would not be exactly indicates selfishness. They're simply casting about for reasons to do what they were always going to do anyway and paying attention to nothing else, or they dismiss it because it's not what they want to hear.

            In the case of a small town, as we're seeing in so many places, that environment becomes a self-reinforcing sealed information bubble. I don't think many people will be very likely to be 'secretly vaccinated' because that would leave them feeling they're being sneaky or like they're letting down the side. They're more likely to feel they can get away with it because they really do see so few people anyway, and if they do know someone who gets sick they'll feel they can just avoid them for a week or two, and then it blows up all around them.

            And someone who would think the costs of being vaccinated outweigh the costs of not being, this is again selfishness. Only a willfully selfish person would think this because all evidence opposing that is so easy to find.

            It's really about giving themselves a sense of control that mollifies their anxieties by saying 'fuck you' to reason and responsibility.

  5. sonofthereturnofaptidude

    I was shocked by this statistic at first, but when I thought about it, it made more sense. Resistance to masking, social distancing and vaccination in a profession that is regularly exposed to the public could lead to just this kind of result. I think we will se more of this kind of statistic as the link between vaxxing and masking resistance and conservative/authoritarian political views continues. OTOH, even some conservatives (not Rand Paul, obviously) are starting to come to their senses about public health measures to resist the spread of infection.

  6. rational thought

    Kevin is usually good at not falling for bogus statistical points, but I think here he is the one doing so.

    This statistic is meaningless unless we have some idea of how they determined that a covid death was in the line of duty.

    Say that Jerry is correct above and that all covid deaths were presumed to be in the line of duty ( not saying that is true, just a starting point).

    So let's compare police officers to the us military. Covid deaths among us military are 385 total. Not sure how many of those are in 2021, but guess about half ( us total somewhat less than half are in 2021 but I think 2020 deaths are more skewed toward aged). So say 190. Us military numbers are maybe about 50% or a little higher than police officers but pretty sure they also are on average younger and in better health. So say thet adjusting for age and health, you would get about the same expected deaths for police officers, or would be about same 190.

    So, if 92 is total covid deaths, looks to me to be lower than expected! Being a police officer reduces risk of dying from covid as compared to military by half.

    But I do not think that they attributed all covid deaths to line of duty. I expect that if a known exposure was outside of work they excluded it. But also would guess that any covid death where infection was unknown, they likely just presumed it to be in line of duty.

    This is a statistic from a police group, and have to expect that they will have an incentive to be biased high in reporting police deaths. And I notice just scanning the list, there are a number of presumed in line of duty explanations. Plus notice Brian sicknick is on the list and he is the one who died of a stroke after jan 6 and quite unclear whether that was related to line of duty.

    If 50% of total covid deaths were reported as line of duty, looks to me that covid death rate of police is about where expected and being a police officer has nothing to do with it.

    Now I had to make a number of assumptions above, although I think all are a reasonable guess. And maybe actual hard statistics really will show some increased covid death risk for being a police officer. But my point is that this alone does show nothing of the sort.

    1. kahner

      I don't see how they can identify covid infections being "line of duty", but it is also sort of irrelevant to Kevin's point, "the last thing we need is to double the number of deaths they already suffer". Whether they caught it on the job or elsewhere, they're still dead and those deaths are virtually guaranteed to have been preventable if they were fully vaccinate.

    2. lawnorder

      I've seen reports that the US has about 600,000 cops. The most recent numbers I can easily find for the armed forces are from 2019, when there were 1.4 million active duty personnel, and 800,000 reserves. Depending on whether or not you count reserves, the armed forces outnumber the cops by either more than 2 to 1 or nearly 4 to 1. There's also no reason to think the forces are younger. There are lots of lifers putting in 20 years or more before retirement in the forces.

      However, the point is not that cops have a higher or lower covid death rate than any other group. The point is that cops have a much higher risk of dying of covid than of any other cause. Considering the amount of effort they put into avoiding death by gunfire, a considerably lower risk than death by covid, you would think that they would make the effort to avoid death by covid. Think of the vaccine as a bullet proof vest for covid viruses.

  7. rational thought

    Those deaths are not " virtually guaranteed " to be prevented by vaccine. I wish it was that effective but not quite that good. Still good enough to make worthwhile.

    And you seem to just be saying that it is a good idea to get vaccinated. But kevin's point was that this is especially so for the police, and that is just not a justifiable conclusion.

    Seems just as likely that the risk of death is basically the same as for other professions, so no reason to make this point for police especially.

    Actually I would guess that some police ( prison guards, border patrol) might really have an increase risk, but I doubt that is true for the average patrolman. Given how we know it spread, I bet an accountant sitting it an enclosed office all day with a group of people has a bigger risk.

    Yes, they cannot clearly identify a covid infection as being in line of duty. I would guess some will be reasonably likely as if in close contact arresting someone with covid and testing positive days later. But almost surely there were a bunch where there was no clear indication where they were exposed and then I expect it was just assumed in line of duty.

    Given the number, I would doubt it was total covid deaths as, if it was, then the number for police is much lower than for others.

    And one reason why it is sort of silly to compare covid deaths to other in line of duty deaths is that such other in line of duty deaths are just not all that huge compared to a pandemic. There are around 700,000 police. So, less than one in 7,000 had died from covid so far this year, when any chance it was in line of duty. That is not a very large fraction. Gunfire deaths are around one in 20,000. Saying covid deaths are 2 1/2 times more seems scarier as most just overestimate chance of police getting killer by gun.

    General perception of chance of both police killing and police getting killed is way too high.

    What also struck me is 14 motor vehicle accident deaths. Given the number of miles police officers drive, that is damn low.

    1. rational thought

      Law enforcement officers are just short of 700,000. These include border patrol, prison guards etc. And they are also included in those line of duty numbers.

      Active duty military are about 1.15 million as far as I can see. Where did you get 1.4 million? Did not count reserves as they were not included in the covid death numbers I used for comparison. 1.15 million is just about 50 % more than 700,000?

      I am positive the average military personnel is younger than the average police officer. Yes, there are some older service members , mostly all officers ( if you are still enlisted after 20 years, maybe not your best job). Average military retirement age well below police. And, for same age, military in better physical shape. The requirements for physical fitness are tougher.

      And not sure how much the risk of dying in line if duty is for covid vs. other causes , like gunfire. The in line of duty covid deaths are inflated from reality by assigning some infections that had nothing to do with the job to in line of duty by presuming that ( plus maybe some dying with covid rather than of covid). Hard to imagine that being a factor with gun deaths. So, if we could know full truth, fairly sure that 2 1/2 differential differential would be significantly reduced.

      And, yes, you can say that the point is that the covid death risk is higher than some other cause. But you can say that about all other jobs too then, and kevin's presumed point was that police have such a greater risk than others so have an especially big need for vaccine. And this data does not show that.

      Now, your point about relative risk of covid death and gunshot death ( even if equal chances) vs. the extra precautions to prevent them ( vests and vaccines), yes that is a valid argument. But the point might just be as much there wearing a vest all day is being overly cautious re chance of being shot.

        1. rational thought

          The cite you give says right there not updated since 2010. However, a little more searching and does seem actual number now is about maybe 1.3 million or 1.35 million. Different sources differ.

          So overall on number you are closer to right I think.

          But also found out two other things that makes my point much stronger and outweighs the number being off.

          First that 385 number for military covid deaths seems to only be for on duty. So someone on leave and catching covid I guess would be excluded. Not sure how much that would change things.

          Second, I said that I was sure police or on average older than military. But it is by even more than I thought. Average police officer seems to be about 40 ( a bit older than I would guess). Average age for military harder to find exact but seems to be not much more than 30 given what it is for different ranks.

          I was trying to find some sort of comparable population for police but maybe choosing military is actually unfair to my position.

          And seeing the covid military death numbers made me think they did a good job. But with that average age, not sure that 385 is all that good.

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