Met Police officer dies after positive Covid test amid calls to vaccinate rank and file

A serving Metropolitan Police officer has died after testing positive for coronavirus, Scotland Yard has said.

PC Michael Warren, 37, was attached to the Met's Territorial Support Group (TSG) but had shielded after being deemed vulnerable to the virus. He died on Tuesday morning.

Pc Warren is believed to be the first serving Met officer to have died after being diagnosed with the coronavirus since the start of the pandemic.

Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick said earlier this week that three other colleagues, including a police community support officer, have also died.

Met Taskforce chief superintendent Karen Findlay said: "Mike was a lovely, genuine and hard-working police officer.

"To lose his life at the young age of 37 is truly heart-breaking and my deepest thoughts and sympathies are with all who knew him, particularly his parents Pauline and Alan, his partner Vicky and their lovely children.

"Mike was a devoted father and a good police officer. Across the Met and the TSG, he was a friend to many of his colleagues. He had a dry sense of humour and was often the heart and soul of a team in a TSG carrier.

"Outside of work, he was a passionate Spurs fan and dedicated his spare time to one of his life's other passions, motorbikes.

"Mike's passion for policing and serving the communities of London was unwavering, even after he started shielding at home so he could focus on his health given the current risk of Covid-19.

"He regularly went above and beyond to support his TSG colleagues virtually, doing anything he could to add value - our policing family has lost a kind, genuine and enthusiastic police officer.

"He was very much motivated to return to frontline duties, and he regularly spoke about how he looked forward to putting his uniform back on and going out on patrol with his colleagues.

"His death is a bitterly stark and upsetting reminder of the human impact of this virus, I know we will all miss him dearly."

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said: "I'd like to extend my deepest condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of PC Michael Warren who has very sadly passed away from Covid.

"My heart goes out to the entire Met family who continue to work tirelessly on the frontline throughout the biggest public health crisis we have seen in our lifetime. They are the very best of us and we are in their debt.

"Our key workers, including teachers, TfL staff, London Ambulance Service and London Fire Brigade and the Metropolitan Police must be protected by the vaccine as soon as possible.

His death was announced after Police Federation chairman John Apter said he was "pleading" with the Government's vaccine advisry group to prioritise police officers for inoculations.

Speaking on Good Morning Britain, Mr Apter said: "Let me just put this into context: this is not about elbowing our way to the front of the queue.

"The most vulnerable in society must be vaccinated, and colleagues from the NHS, but my colleagues are vulnerable. They can't mitigate this virus, they are not immune from this virus.

"Tragically, in this last week alone, we've lost colleagues to this virus. Police officers are up close and personal with people, they have to go hands-on, they have to make arrests.

"I am pleading with the vaccination committee to look at my colleagues, as well as teachers and firefighters ... my colleagues are at risk.

"Also we're having more and more of them who are off sick through Covid, or they're having to self-isolate, so there's fewer of them available to deal with the pressures that we have so it is a real, real issue for us."