Four Peterborough emergency responders tested positive for COVID-19 this week, and another eight are out of the rotation due to potential exposure.
Peterborough Fire and Rescue Chief Ed Walker said that despite the 12 firefighters and ambulance workers that are either quarantined after potential exposure or isolated after a positive test, the department is still more than adequately staffed to handle emergencies in town.
“We’re a long way from not being able to meet our service demand,” Walker said Sunday night.
Walker said he received word Thursday that an on-call firefighter had tested positive for COVID-19 as part of a screening for his day job. The department was able to identify three other emergency personnel who had worked with the firefighter on a shift last Sunday, and when tested, their results came back positive as well, despite two of them being asymptomatic.
“What I can say is that we’ve tracked it down and traced it and we’ve got some people who are quarantined or isolated,” Walker said. “We think now that we have it handled, we know who potentially would have been exposed, we think we’ve identified it and we’ll know in a few days if there are any more cases.”
Walker said his crew is following the state’s guidelines for emergency personnel who have potentially been exposed to COVID-19, which include quarantining anyone who may have come in contact with any of the people who tested positive for 14 days.
Walker said that emergency personnel working with patients wear N95 respirator masks which should prevent the spread of virulent airborne droplets.
“There shouldn’t be any issues with patients,” Walker said, “or our ability to respond.”