New York City Police Commissioner Dermot Shea at left, is on hand in a nearly empty Times Square before midnight's celebration of the new year in New York City on December 31, 2020. (Photo by COREY SIPKIN/AFP via Getty Images)
NEW YORK - The NYPD announced Friday that NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea tested positive for the coronavirus.
"The Police Commissioner has tested positive for COVID. He’s doing well. He’s in touch with his executive staff on a regular basis. He’s staying home and he is running the Police Department remotely," said Deputy Commissioner Richard Esposito.
Shea is one of thousands of NYPD officers who have tested positive for the virus since the outbreak began last year. Only a week into January, and 463 members of the NYPD have tested positive for the potentially deadly virus. Six detectives, a police officer and 40 civilian employees have died of the virus.
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Former Transportation Chief William Morris died of COVID-19 in June. John Miller, the deputy commissioner for intelligence and counterterrorism, was hospitalized with the disease in March and has returned to work.
Shea has been commissioner of the NYPD, the nation's largest police force, since December 2019. He rose through the ranks from patrol officer in the early 1990s to become the department's statistical guru and chief of detectives before Mayor Bill de Blasio appointed him to the top job.
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About an hour before the announcement, Shea tweeted condolences for the fallen Capitol Hill police officer who died from injuries sustained during this week's riots.
"The thoughts & prayers of every member of the NYPD are with the family, friends, & colleagues of fallen US Capital Police Officer Brian D. Sicknick, who succumbed to injuries received in the line of duty on Wednesday. Rest In Peace, Brian."
Earlier this week, de Blasio announced plans to offer COVID-19 vaccines to most city police officers, only to have Gov. Andrew Cuomo say an hour later that the officers weren't yet eligible for them. De Blasio said the city had hoped to offer the vaccines to 25,000 officers and to provide shots to 10,000 by Sunday.
"Police who are not health care workers are not yet eligible," Cuomo said. "We need to get the health care population done first because they are the front line, as I mentioned before."
During his daily briefing on the pandemic Friday, Mayor Bill de Blasio said the positivity rate in the city in a seven-day rolling average was 9.38 %.
256 people were admitted to hospitals across the city with the virus a day earlier.
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With the Associated Press