Friday, May 12, 2023

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.

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