IS TRANSPORTATION NOT AN ESSENTIAL?

May 07, 2020 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,

I find what the COVID task force and the Ministry of Public Health is doing to the transportation services is very inconsiderate, both to the public and the transportation sector.
They have put in place a curfew, with exception to the essential with which I agree. Now the question comes to mind, is transportation not essential? I think it is essential. As such both private and public transportation should be allowed to operate beyond the curfew or at least they should have a different curfew. I would recommend 22:00 hrs (10:00 pm). That would give everybody enough time to get home or to get to work for those shift workers.
I know it must be really hard for those workers leaving work at 19:00 hrs (7:00 pm) or 20:00 hrs (8:00 pm) to get home. With no buses on the road or you have to wait for hours for one due to the ministry curfew. The ministry only caters for one set of people that is the nurses.
I am very grateful also for the nurses and all the frontline workers and also the workers who are not at the frontline but play a vital role in the fight as well and those are the persons that the ministry forget about or don’t take into consideration. A special thanks to you guys as well. They are the biomedical techs (a set of people who nobody knows exist), the lab techs, the securities and the cleaners, the pharmacist and the attendant, just to name a few.
Back to the issue at hand, most of these persons have a shift system and finish work at 7:00 pm. Now how are they getting home? Or how are the frontline workers getting to work for a 7:00 pm or 8:00 pm shift? I am calling on the ministry to implement and put proper measures in place to cater for everyone and not just one set of people. At 6:30 the park is usually crowded with people. My question is how are they getting home when the task force is sending home the buses at 6:00 pm?
Public transportation is already taking half their capacity now they have to come off the road early as well. That is only putting pressure on both the transportation services and the public. Also that would not stop or prevent the spread of the COVID -19 virus because you have more persons at the parks congested and if by chance a bus goes into the park, they are putting 3 in a seat because everybody wants to go home. So I don’t see how sending home the buses at 6:00 pm help the stop of the COVID-19 virus.
I hope somebody who has the power to change the situation is reading this and can do something about this situation.
My recommendation is to let the buses work until 10:00 pm that is ample time for all works to reach to work and to get home from work.

Regards,
Tom H. Jones

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