“Syracuse taxpayers paid police officers to stay home while city faced financial disaster.” 

Brooks Gump, Falk Family Endowed Professor of Public Health in Falk College, was quoted in the syracuse.com story “Syracuse taxpayers paid police officers to stay home while city faced financial disaster.” The City Police Department said a main reason for sending many officers home while continuing to pay them was to reduce the spread of COVID-19. However, Gump, a public health expert, says this practice likely provided “minimal benefit.” “That kind of scheduling manipulation may be important in areas where you have really high rates of infection, where they’re more likely to get infected from their community or other situations,” says Gump.