Corona raised a lot of questions at the beginning. The work of a patrol officer is unpredictable due to it being assignment based. I might have to be in contact with people who were infected with the coronavirus. There would not always be time to put on the necessary protective gear. An assignment might also be such that you cannot dress into protective gear in the middle of the assignment. As a police officer, my safety can be a secondary issue. Early on, there was also ambiguity about whether masks could provide an adequate level of protection. Corona caused a great deal of extra stress.
In addition to our ordinary assignments, a completely new set of assignments were added to our days. Our resources remained the same as before. The police were assigned tasks such as limiting traffic at the borders of Uusimaa, which not all citizens understood. The emergency conditions significantly increased our workload. This caused me to feel much more fatigue than normally.
I encountered situations where the apprehended person told me that they had corona or threatened to infect me. In these situations many others could have also been exposed. In most cases, the person did not have a known infection. However, there was often concern whether I was potentially exposed because not all cases could be checked. I knew that in my line of work I had a significantly higher risk of getting a corona infection and thus exposing my loved ones to infection. Some of my loved ones didn’t want to meet with me for this reason. I felt like I was in continuous quarantine. I hope that the second wave of corona will be at least no worse than the first.