Some Westmoreland transport operators flouting COVID protocols
WESTERN BUREAU:
THE CHIEF medical officer of health for Westmoreland is sounding the alarm over the failure of public passenger vehicle operators to wear masks and adhere to social-distancing protocols despite the high risk of them contracting COVID-19 because of the number of persons they interface with daily.
“As we go on, we will expand to test the transportation sector; they are very high risk,” Dr Marcia Graham said while addressing the recent monthly meeting of the Westmoreland Municipal Corporation.
“They are carrying persons from place to place, all over the place, some of them not wearing any mask. Some of them not observing any physical distance and we don’t know what our drivers, our transportation workers, have been exposed to,” she lamented.
HOME QUARANTINE
Graham said the Westmoreland Public Health Department has been kept busy testing and monitoring more than 120 persons who returned to the parish from overseas and are under home quarantine orders as well as senior citizens and infirm residents in an effort to promote health and safety.
Westmoreland accounts for nine of the country’s more than 600 COVID-19 cases and one of the 10 deaths.
While acknowledging that there is some level of tardiness on the part public passenger operators, Patrick Forrester, president of the Petersfield Taxi Association, said not all persons are flouting the COVID-19 orders.
“The health department occasionally contacted us. We have done our part by appealing to the members to exercise caution by wearing a mask, sanitise their hands regularly and to observe the social-distancing rule,” said Forrester. “You know how ‘John Public’ stay. Some will comply, some won’t, but we are seeing persons who are adhering to those instructions.”
According to Forrester, the members of his association account for 800 of the more than 1,200 public transport operators in the parish and that they are generally compliant with the COVID-19 protocols.
“Yes, I am seeing that some of our members are exposed. You have taxi operators who are exercising social distancing and wearing a mask. On the other hand, you have those that don’t, but it’s not like it’s a total reluctance on the part of the operators of these public passenger vehicles,” he said.