There have not been any positive COVID-19 cases among Kamloops RCMP officers but the risk of exposure is daily, according to the top cop.

Supt. Syd Lecky told Kamloops councillors yesterday that everyday, Mounties are trying to track down street-affected people who are positive for the virus.

“We’re finding out after the fact, as recently as an hour and a half ago, that members had interacted with a client and we then find out they’re COVID positive. And as a result of that, just in the last week and a half, together with some of our guards we’ve been exposed. We’ve had probably six people who are going to be off work as a result,” Lecky said.

“A lot of the clientele that we’re dealing with, with our street enforcement unit, and Car 40 and so on, and our frontline general duty members, are finding that our street entrenched clients, some of these in shelters and so on, many of them are running with COVID-19, non-compliant, refusing to get vaccinated.”

Lecky says many people in the street-affected population are refusing a vaccine dose as they are consumed by conspiracy theories about the virus.

There have been concerns raised in Kamloops of a growing number of virus cases among street-affected people, which has been acknowledged by Interior Health. It’s unclear exactly how many people have been affected.

Street-affected residents have been included in priority groups for B.C.’s vaccine rollout.

Lecky says he hopes police officers are able to move up in the queue, saying the virus has had a significant impact on personnel.