14 Public Transport Staff Caught Covid-19, MOH Says Infection Risk In Buses & Trains Still Low

MOH Says 14 Public Transport Staff Tested Positive For Covid-19, No Commuters Affected

The public transport ridership has doubled since the end of ‘Circuit Breaker’ and will only increase as we enter Phase 2.

Just yesterday, 14 public transport staff have been found to be infected with Covid-19, as reported by The Straits Times (ST).

However, this should not induce panic as none of the infected staff was found to have infected commuters.

Moreover, the Ministry of Health (MOH) has found that the risk of transmission on public transport is low.

Transient contact on public transport has low rate of transmission

Answering ST’s queries, MOH revealed yesterday (18 Jun) that 14 public bus and train staff have tested positive for Covid-19.

Source

However, they reassured that none of them had infected commuters. This comes after MOH’s investigations found that there were no epidemiological links between the 14 staff and passengers they may have come in contact with.

In ST’s report on Friday (19 Jun), MOH explains that the risk of infection from “transient contact” is assessed to be low.

Transient contact is defined as walking past someone, touching briefly, or in this case, encounters on public transport.

Source

Instead, the MOH spokesperson said the risk of infection is much higher when one has close contact with a Covid-19 patient in “work, social or household settings”.

Public transport heavily cleaned to ensure safe commutes

In spite of low transmission risk, public transport operators are still stepping up on safety measures.

Source

The Land Transport Authority (LTA) highlighted that MRT stations and bus interchanges are being sanitised once every 2 hours.

Source

Cleaning efforts are also especially concentrated on human contact points such as handrails and buttons.

Doing our part for safe commuting too

While authorities are doing all they can to ensure safe commuting, we must be socially responsible as well.

MOH has urged all commuters to continue wearing masks and refrain from talking to one another. This greatly reduces the risk of transmission as talking increases the amount of droplets in the air.

Let us all continue to do our part in lowering the community spread in the country.

Featured image adapted from Wonderwall.