NYC health head rejected NYPD mask plea: 'I don't give 2 rats' a--es about your cops'
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New York City’s health commissioner blew off an urgent NYPD request for 500,000 surgical masks as the coronavirus crisis mounted — telling a high-ranking police official that “I don’t give two rats’ a--es about your cops,” The Post has learned.
Dr. Oxiris Barbot made the heartless remark during a brief phone conversation in late March with NYPD Chief of Department Terence Monahan, sources familiar with the matter said Wednesday.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Dr. Oxiris Barbot, the commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, right, with Mayor Bill de Blasio this past February. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)
Monahan asked Barbot for 500,000 masks but she said she could only provide 50,000, the sources said.
“I don’t give two rats’ a--es about your cops,” Barbot said, according to sources.
“I need them for others.”
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The conversation took place as increasing numbers of cops were calling out sick with symptoms of COVID-19 but before the department suffered its first casualties from the deadly respiratory disease, sources said.