The Revenge of the Thin Blue Line 37: A lotta Illinois Policemen are suddenly gonna discover they have "Long Covid"

Police tend to be rightwing.  Police also tend to be incurious and incredulous.  So it's no coincidence you find a large portion of Police Officers were Covid denialists, as well as, Vaccine hesitant, anti-mask and vehemently against other mild Covid mitigation protocols.

But, Cops are also woe-is-me, cynical, lazy bums who literally invented "Quiet Quitting" decades ago under the name "The Blue Flu".  But, if we've seen anything from rightwingers over the years, it's that they don't actually abide by the values, rules, and ethics they supposedly cherish.

So, the news that Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker signed The Act-of-Duty Law (HB3162), which modifies the Illinois Police Pension code to address disability from Covid and post-Covid complications, will place these Officers in a ethical quandary,

(e) For the purposes of this Section only, any policeman

who becomes disabled as a result of exposure to and

contraction of COVID-19, as evidenced by either a confirmed

positive laboratory test for COVID-19 or COVID-19 antibodies

or a confirmed diagnosis of COVID-19 from a licensed medical

professional, shall:

(1) be rebuttably presumed to have contracted COVID-19

while in the performance of an act or acts of duty;

(2) be rebuttably presumed to have been injured while

in the performance of an act or acts of duty; and

(3) be entitled to receive a duty disability benefit

during any period of such disability for which the

policeman does not have a right to receive salary, in an

amount equal to 75% of the policeman's salary, as salary

is defined in this Article, at the time the disability is

allowed, in accordance with subsection (a).

The presumption shall apply to any policeman who was

exposed to and contracted COVID-19 on or after March 9, 2020

and on or before June 30, 2021; except that the presumption

shall not apply if the policeman was on a leave of absence from

his or her employment or otherwise not required to report for

duty for a period of 14 or more consecutive days immediately

prior to the date of contraction of COVID-19.

Ha ha ha!  Who am I kidding?  There will be no quandary!  What we're going to find is a bunch of Cops who previously dismissed, denied, or outright proclaimed Coronavirus to be a Hoax (despite Covid being the leading cause of Officer deaths for the last 3 straight years) will suddenly find they, in fact, had caught it between March 2020 and June 2021.  And these deniers will no doubt discover that their Long Covid is so severe will inhibit their performance of their duty as much as it impacted former Chicago Blackhawk player Jonathan Toews.

Now, of course, Cops are also miserly and petulant so even though Governor Pritzker has looked out for Law Enforcement he's a Democrat! and that's the worst thing ever, so expect all these jabroni's to collect their disability while grousing about Pritzker's toilets.