After COVID-19 Recovery, First Responders Get Back To Work

The new coronavirus doesn’t care about a blue uniform or a shiny badge. Police, firefighters, paramedics and corrections officers are just a 911 call away from contracting COVID-19 and spreading it.

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With N95 masks hanging off their duty belts and disposable blue gloves stuffed in their back pockets, they respond to radio calls, make arrests and manage prisoners. But their training never covered something quite like this — what has been called an “invisible bullet.”

It’s sickened thousands of America’s first responders and killed dozens more.

But many have recovered, and they’re going back to work — back to the crime scene, back into the ambulance, back to the jail. Going back to this deadly pandemic’s front lines.

They go with a lingering cough and lost weight. They toss and turn at night, wondering if the claims of immunity are true. They fear that picking up extra overtime shifts may expose them, and their families, to additional risks.

And then they pull on their uniforms and go back to work.

Some of their stories:

THE RISK

HOUSTON — In Deputy Ravin Washington’s squad car, risk rides shotgun. The threats she faces on her solo patrols are usually more immediate than reports of some new unseen virus.

On the beat in northwest Houston, Washington, 28, has been in fights and drawn her gun. In 2017, three months after she finished the police academy, her partner at the time was shot in the leg.

Harris County Sheriff’s Deputy Ravin Washington wipes the microphone inside her patrol car. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)