Bus driver attitudes cause worry
An STM bus driver posted on Facebook that Covid is a false pandemic and that he doesn’t disinfect his bus because the pandemic is a hoax to control people. (CTV helpfully adds here “There is no evidence to support the driver’s claim that the COVID-19 pandemic is ‘false.’ “)
This driver also said he’s “against” wearing masks. Here, the item reminds us that François Legault says it will be “up to bus drivers to refuse entry to passengers who aren’t wearing masks” which made me blink. Right now, bus drivers don’t even see their passengers. I rode the bus for some time the other day and at least 1/3 of the passengers were not in masks – mostly young people and intransigent-looking older men. The driver only drove the bus and didn’t concern himself (or herself) with how passengers were behaving. (If Legault said this, it’s because he doesn’t take transit, doesn’t realize that passengers don’t even go past the driver right now.)
Footnote: the CTV item is illustrated with a photo of the 24 bus on Sherbrooke Street, but there’s no indication in the text which routes the covidiot driver has been covering.
walkerp 11:57 on 2020-07-09 Permalink
A big problem with the internet is that actually not everybody needs a voice. We would all be better off if this covidiot (nice in passing use of the term, btw, Kate) kept his thoughts to himself.
Jack 13:17 on 2020-07-09 Permalink
I was on the 55 Sunday afternoon and I’d say about half of the riders were not wearing masks. It is obvious that the bus drivers will not enforce this rule.
Does anyone here have a strategy ?
As a passenger can I say “Hey you are not wearing a mask, get off the bus.” or ” Move to the States you’ll be happier there.” etc.etc.
Kate 13:48 on 2020-07-09 Permalink
This is the thing, isn’t it. Nobody wants to be the person who takes it on themselves to order other people around. We’ve all seen the videos where people get aggressive if reprimanded.
Plus, now if you sit alone on a double seat with no mask on, it ups the odds nobody will sit next to you.
Kevin 13:49 on 2020-07-09 Permalink
My daughter wanted to take the bus to see a friend in the Mile End on the weekend. I drove her instead and made sure she was wearing a mask when she stepped out of the car.
That’s my strategy.
Tee Owe 14:50 on 2020-07-09 Permalink
Masks protect others from you way better than they protect you from others. So, the queston to a mask non-wearer should be, ‘when did you get your coronoavirus-negative test result?’ Should make them think about what it means (and maybe get tested), and think about wearing a mask as long as they don’t have that result
Chris 20:02 on 2020-07-09 Permalink
Jack: strategy advice: you do your thing, and let them be them.
MarcG 20:11 on 2020-07-09 Permalink
This is a philosophical can of worms but if someone “being themselves” is going to cause me to get a potentially deadly illness I’m not sure how much of a hippy I am in that situation.
Kate 22:32 on 2020-07-09 Permalink
Your freedom to “do your thing” is limited by the risk “your thing” is causing to others. Do we have to explain this to you, Chris?
Chris 23:59 on 2020-07-09 Permalink
>Your freedom to “do your thing” is limited by the risk “your thing” is causing to others.
Obviously.
And what is that risk? The non-mask wearer would have to be 1) infectious 2) manage to transmit it to you and 3) you’d have to catch it. Otherwise, they’ve done you no harm. It’s a very low risk.
And people are constantly doing things that are detrimental to others, yet socially acceptable. You drive your car and you are responsible for your portion of the millions that die from air pollution each and every year. To say nothing of the countless more who get asthma or other reduced quality of life. The probability of doing harm is 100%. Yet car driving is not just socially acceptable, it’s encouraged. You wash your polyester clothes and you contribute micro-plastics everywhere in our food chain and water supplies. You eat meat and you’re contributing to zoonotic viruses that jump to humans. There are a million other examples.
So in my books, if you want to be a mask-shamer, then I hope you’re also shaming drivers as you walk past their open windows, shaming people as they’re hanging out their laundry, shaming picnickers, etc.
Perhaps everyone is allotted a small amount of harm it’s ok to do unto others? If someone has forgone owning a car, and is taking public transport, perhaps it’s ok for his allotment of harm to be from not wearing a mask during a heat wave?
dwgs 07:02 on 2020-07-10 Permalink
“Come down off the cross, we can use the wood”
Kevin 09:06 on 2020-07-10 Permalink
Chris,
You went straight up Chinese Communist Party-style malevolence with your last comment.
Skip encouraging evil and read about Typhoid Mary.
Chris 10:19 on 2020-07-10 Permalink
Kevin, “CCP-style”?! Encouraging evil”?! What are you on about?! To borrow another Christian phrase, I’m saying “Let he who is without sin can cast the first stone”. I’m not saying don’t wear a mask. I’m saying everyone is harming and/or putting his fellow man at risk everyday. Don’t get your knickers in a knot about it wrt masks but not every other thing.
dwgs 10:35 on 2020-07-10 Permalink
That wasn’t a Christian phrase, it was Tom Waits. And nobody likes a scold.
MarcG 10:39 on 2020-07-10 Permalink
Damn I was hoping I could go vegan, make my own clothes, ride my bike everywhere and then cash in my “harm to others” chips on something big. Seriously, though, Chris, in your attempts to be anti-car you end up being pro-car by saying “people drive and it’s bad and nobody cares so nobody should care about anything else”.
Raymond Lutz 10:52 on 2020-07-10 Permalink
Two words (and a link): excess mortality. Sure, people die of car usage. But it’s DIFFICULT in our society (at least in a city without adequate public transit system) to go without a car and it’s EASY to wear a mask. False equivalence… COVID-19 deaths were (and are) easily preventable simply wearing a mask. Japan didn’t even had a complete lock down and fared very well «the government launched a nationwide campaign warning people to avoid the “Three Cs”: Enclosed spaces with poor ventilation; Crowded places with many people and Close contact settings such as face-to-face conversations » (BBC article).
Kevin 13:26 on 2020-07-10 Permalink
Chris,
If you don’t understand what I was talking about, then I suggest you read about the CCP and China’s Social Credit score.
Or you could watch The Good Place and reflect upon its flawed judgment system.
Either way, what you proposed was straight-up evil: a ranking system of indulgences and sins to permit people to behave badly in order to risk the health of others during a global pandemic.
You’re highly concerned about climate change. I get that. But you don’t get permission to become Typhoid Mary because you’re vegan or whatnot.