WHEN DOES IT STOP?

COVID Has Now Killed 60 Members of the NYPD

Officer Sony Clerge died on Friday—the third department employee in a week.

NYPD Officer Sony Clerge died of COVID-19 this week, the third employee this week to be killed by the virus in a department with low vaccination rates. It’s not known if Clerge, a 19-year veteran who was close to retirement, was vaccinated but it’s rare for those who are fully immunized to die from the virus. “The hearts of the NYPD family are a bit more broken today,” Commissioner Dermot Shea said in a tweet announcing his death. It comes days after NYPD crossing guard Pauline Soto and Detective Shantay Neal-Baker succumbed to COVID. The vaccination rate for the NYPD is just 47 percent, 10 percentage points below the city’s overall rate. And there has been resistance among cops to wearing masks, prompting officials to decree that any unvaccinated personnel who do not mask up on duty will face discipline.