COVID kills hundreds of US school bus drivers

Hundreds of school bus drivers in the United States have died from COVID-19 as a result of working to transport the nation’s schoolchildren to and from school safely amid the coronavirus pandemic, figures show.

The drivers died after catching COVID-19 in more than 10 states, according to reports by local governments and school districts.

An online tracker, “School Personnel Lost to COVID’’, recorded 221 deaths of school bus drivers nationwide as of Oct 22.

School bus drivers tend to be over the age of 50 or retired and may suffer from underlying health conditions due to their age, data from several school districts shows.

Mae Elizbeth Wyatt Lord, 71, a bus driver in Morgan County, Georgia, died on Oct 16 after working for the school district for more than 36 years. She had retired and then returned to work.

Her family wrote in her obituary that her “greatest joy was supporting the young people of Morgan County at athletic events and also driving her Crossroads kids”.

Each school day, approximately 500,000 school buses nationwide transport more than 25 million children, according to data from the Amalgamated Transit Union, which represents more than 12,000 school bus workers in New York City and across the state.

Since the start of the fall term, when schools returned to full-time, in-person learning, more school districts have reported deaths of local school bus drivers.

However, there is no national database that records exactly how many drivers have died from COVID-19, just local data.

The Florida Education Association reported that seven bus workers have died from COVID-19 in that state since July, according to USA Today.

In Georgia, at least 12 school bus workers died of COVID-19 since the beginning of the new school year.

Kristi Fuller, 49, a school bus driver and cafeteria manager at Lorena High School, in Texas, died on Oct 19 after contracting COVID-19. She leaves behind three children.

Lorena Independent School District said in a statement: “Kristi Rinewalt Fuller was an excellent leader who will be missed by students, staff, and the greater Lorena ISD community. Our prayers and condolences are with her family at this most difficult time.”

Public health experts are divided on whether school bus drivers are at an increased risk of catching the coronavirus while doing their job.

William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine and infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, suggests that children have high rates of passing on a virus like the flu to older relatives, but their transmission rates aren’t as high when it comes to passing on the coronavirus.

Schaffner told China Daily, “Children in particular are thought to have the ‘distribution franchise’ for the influenza virus in our communities, unlike COVID.”

Research published in the JAMA Internal Medicine journal in September 2020 found that there were high transmission rates on buses if people didn’t wear a mask and there was poor ventilation.

However, Xiaoyan Song, chief infection control officer at the Children’s National Hospital in Washington DC, believes that drivers aren’t at an increased risk of getting COVID-19 from students because they are only near the students for a brief time when they board and leave the bus. It takes several minutes of exposure to become infected with the coronavirus.

In a bid to protect drivers, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in January ordered that masks be worn on public transportation, including school buses.

“Passengers on public conveyances traveling into, within, or out of the United States regardless of their vaccination status, are required to wear a mask over their nose and mouth,” the CDC’s order states.

The masking rule applies to public or private buses, although some states do not follow it.

School districts nationwide issued guidelines and safety protocols before the start of the fall term to keep drivers safe.

The California Education Department’s guidebook for the safe reopening of public schools released on June 8 advises physical distancing at bus stops, school loading and unloading zones and on school buses.

On Sept 2, New York state’s Health Department issued an order requiring all school personnel, including bus drivers and contracted bus drivers, to submit proof of full vaccination or submit to weekly testing for the coronavirus.