Bi-State Development, which operates Metro Transit, reported the death of a worker from COVID-19 on Tuesday, April 7.
“The impacts of this horrible disease are devastating, and today’s loss is a stark reminder of the serious threat COVID-19 poses to our families, friends, and communities,” Bi-State said in an unsigned statement.
To date, 14 Bi-State Development Metro Transit workers from six different locations have tested positive for COVID-19, the statement said.
“In response, anyone who had close contact with these team members was identified and reached out to directly,” it stated. “Those individuals were asked to self-quarantine for 14 days. In addition, the facilities and areas where potential exposure occurred have been sanitized and disinfected using CDC guidelines.”
As of this week, Metro said its operators are equipped with N95 masks. Jessica Mefford-Miller, executive director of Metro Transit, said the agency also conducts temperature screenings on all employees and contractors each day. However, fever is only one symptom of COVID-19 and the CDC reports many positive tests of people with no symptoms.
Bi-State workers want the agency to do more to protect them. A quarantined Bi-State worker spoke to The American before the COVID-19 death was announced, requesting anonymity out of fear of reprisal.
Plexiglass barriers would offer further protection for bus operators.
“There’s no way to block a person from coming up here,” the worker said. “We’ve had several passengers approach operators, and we had to tell them to stand back behind the double yellow lines.”
By that point, the worker could have been exposed.
Metro painted double lines to separate commuter space and operator space. In addition, drivers have personal protective equipment, Metro is not collecting fares on buses, and it has passengers boarding and leaving the buses via the rear door.
Mefford-Miller said Metro Transit is having conversations with the transit union daily during this pandemic. Though she has not received a request for plexiglass barriers personally, it’s complicated.
“Any barriers onboard our buses have to be moveable, because the operator does not have an exit door on the driver’s side,” Mefford-Miller said. “It has to be something that is able to easily, in an emergency, open and close. It has to be something that does not inhibit their view of their right side-view mirror. And it has to be something that can attach, given all the equipment that we have, including a farebox that is adjacent to the right of the operator cabin.”
Metro does have barriers right now on 104 of its 409 buses.
“These barriers, just like plexiglass barriers that you’re seeing at grocery stores, are not vapor barriers. They would be spill barriers,” she said. “So, if someone would spit or sneeze or something like that on an operator, they would presumably be a barrier to that transmission of fluid.”
Reginald Howard, president of the Amalgamated Union Local 788, which represents transit workers, said deep cleaning of buses, trains and work areas has been a major concern.
“They work in that bus eight to 10 hours a day,” Howard said. “They want, basically speaking, their home cleaned to make sure they are sanitized so they don’t get no germs or something from all the people who ride the buses.”
Mefford-Miller said that bus service was adjusted so the buses can be cleaned at least twice a day, at night and mid-day.
“We are also deep cleaning all of our operator facilities at our divisions each night,” she said. “And we are also implementing fogging – which is using airborne chemicals at night – about every four days at every facility to try and address airborne transmission of the coronavirus.”
She said they brought in union reps to visit two of the facilities so see what the agency was doing and what chemicals it was using to clean and sanitize. B-State also was deep cleaning customer-facing areas, before public areas at its transit centers were closed late last week.
Howard said that union members also are concerned about buses carrying more passengers than they should, which can bring people into unsafe proximity. They want Bi-State to rope off the first two seats on busses to keep the public further away from operators.
Mefford-Miller said Bi-State is concerned about staffing shortages to continue to provide transit services.
Due in part to medical, self-imposed or company quarantine, Metro Transit reported absenteeism rates of 52 percent for bus and rail operators last week and is now operating on a weekend schedule seven days a week.
“We simply don’t have enough people coming to work every day to support our full complement of service, and many of our routes have much lighter than normal ridership,” Mefford-Miller said. “All of our resources are out there. We are deploying everything that we’ve got, every day.”
Metro has asked that only essential workers and passengers traveling for essential services ride public transit at this time.
“Frankly, there are too many people out traveling, and we are encouraging our leaders to encourage greater compliance in order to inhibit the spread of this pandemic,” Mefford-Miller said. “We would ask that people who are not making critical employment trips or critical trips to seek health care or groceries would refrain from using our system at this time.”
Howard said that the lives of his union members depend on it: “Everybody is afraid, because people are dying from this.”
