Fellesforbundet is concerned about whether the Coronavirus measures are good enough when society starts up again after the holidays. The association organizes several thousand bus drivers.
According to NRK, federal secretary Dag-Einar Sivertsen is particularly concerned about rush hour when people go to work, school and kindergartens again.
– “We register that the infection rates are increasing since Europe has opened up, and we see that the infection also spreads quickly also in public transport. We are now very concerned that the measures that are now in place are not sufficient, for the probable increase of the spread of infection on public transport when autumn begins,” says the federal secretary.
© NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today
Sivertsen *should* be worried. After so many bus drivers had died, Mayor Khan of London was speaking out months ago saying anyone using public transportation should be facemasking, as well as the drivers. FINALLY, Britain’s Tory government has ordered that, along with shopkeepers and their customers to facemask.
In Norway, this is especially vital with the every-second-seat-vacant social distancing policy now ended.
VENTILATION with outside air on buses (and trains) is also vital, to lower the “viral load”/density of the aerosol/vapor (as well as more deadly droplet) form of this deadly airborne killer. ALL DOORS should be opened and kept open for as long as possible during bus stops, and if the overhead emergency escape hatches can be opened, they should be, unless the weather is *driving* rain.
I think I e-mailed the bus drivers’ union about this a couple months ago, and I have noticed that some of our drivers on the Lillestrøm to Flateby run *have* been keeping their doors open more – even the driver’s door which passengers aren’t supposed to enter, for driver safety. Sivertsen should be MELTING the telephone line to the FHI and government about having everyone facemask on public transportation.
Meanwhile, the virus is starting to re-appear in Norway, and as Sivertsen says, the rush hour makes “social distancing” difficult if not impossible.
And even though it has resumed meeting, I’m still not going to my Oslo (*face-to-face*, after all) boardgames club meetings, because they haven’t made facemasks mandatory, and I’m 83% “eligible” – age, male gender, maybe a *little* overweight, heart condition (but Akershus says it’s “Good”), and chronic/biennial bronchial pneumonia since I was 8.
The disposable facemasks – which can be reused after more than 3 days, according to recent articles – are available and cheap in apotek butikks … while they last.
FHI and the government should give people notice to buy them now, to avoid a shortage.
Erna and her Høyre/Conservative government won a TREMENDOUS victory in this coronavirus world war, protecting us in Norway with the early, extreme lockdown.
But it will all be lost, unless a national everyone-facemasking-in-public (or at least on public transportation, in schools and libraries, in supermarkets and butikks, etc.) policy is instituted … and enforced.