Police Scotland officers may have acted as "super-spreaders" during the pandemic as expert advice was "ignored" by the Scottish government and the force's ex-chief constable, an inquiry heard.
Calum Steele, ex-general secretary of the Scottish Police Federation (SPF), former chairman David Hamilton, and vice chairman Brian Jones gave evidence at the Scottish COVID-19 Inquiry on Monday.
A Scottish government decision not to prioritise frontline police during the vaccine rollout was branded "perverse", with one officer attending 75 callouts to different households in a single weekend, the inquiry heard.
Allegations that ex-chief constable Sir Iain Livingstone rejected calls for frontline officers to be given spare vaccines, refused to issue reusable rubber masks used by officers in Northern Ireland due to appearance, and refused an alternative to roadside breath testing despite concerns about COVID transmission were also aired at the inquiry.
Giving evidence, union leaders said ex-justice secretary Humza Yousaf branded the SPF a "disgrace", recalled they were a "pain in the backside", and the conflict "became personal", while evidence from a panel of experts commissioned by the SPF was met with "suspicion" and "ignored" by the government.
Mr Steele said Police Scotland "substantially absolved itself of health and safety responsibility" regarding adequacy of personal protective equipment (PPE), despite an agreement before lockdown that FFP3 masks would be issued.
He said the force "refused" to log the rate of usage, and the risks were "exacerbated" by using the same mask throughout a shift.
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