Stay home for COVID19 — unless you catch a bus, get a bite, need toilet paper

Monday was Day 15 of the “stay-at-home” order to stop the the community spread of COVID19 in Miami-Dade, which now has a reported 1,701 positive cases, according to the Florida Department of Health. But for all the “shelter-in-place” orders and curfews — a new one starts in Hialeah — and “safer at home” rhetoric, there sure is a lot of activity happening anyway.

Even though a Publix employee has tested positive — and does anyone think that’s the only grocery store worker who is going to be carrying the coronavirus? — we are allowed to go to grocery stores and CVS or Walgreens, even though there may be times that are reserved just for old people. By the time anyone under 60 gets in, all the toilet paper and Lysol is gone. Big Lots and the many dollar stores that are also open as essential businesses are good for those things, some say. Farm Stores is also still open. The one on U.S. 1 in Pinecrest had toilet paper Monday afternoon. The parking lot at Whole Foods on 104th was packed at 4 p.m. Trader Joe’s, Sedano’s, Winn Dixie, Milams, Aldis — all open, even though shelves are thinning out. Why aren’t they restocking faster? Because the food supply chain has been disrupted (more on that later).

Pawn shops are open, because they are considered essential businesses under the Patriot Act. So, you can leave your house to sell some gold for groceries. Or to buy a gun. If these places are allowed to stay open, it means they expect to have customers.

We are still allowed to jump on the 27 or the 38 Max or the 2 or any number of circulating trolleys. Don’t know where we’d go since most things are closed. Maybe the pawn shop? Or the bank? Banks are still open, and although some are only providing drive-through service, others have lobby appointments. So, you can leave the house to go to the bank.

Oh, and you can fill the tank somewhere along the way as you do your diligencias.

On Monday, Mayor Carlos Gimenez told us via his daily video message that condominiums have to close their pools, gyms and common areas. We already can’t go to the park to let off some steam or toss a frisbee — which, by the way, requires people to stand more than six feet apart. Gimenez even warned that people were congregating, against his orders, in golf courses adjacent to sidewalks in Coral Gables and elsewhere. “Golf courses cannot become open parks,” he said Monday.

So, we can’t go to the park, where there is nothing that anyone else has touched, but we can go to Walgreens where we’ll touch carts and shelves and goods and keypads that who knows how many other people touched. Yeah, that makes sense.

We can go to our favorite restaurants for take-out or just get delivery. But how do we know that the packaging and the food is safe? Is everyone washing their hands after they take the pan con bistec from Sergio’s out of its styrofoam capsule? Wait, did you touch the pan con bistec after you touched the styrofoam to get it out and before you washed your hands? Ahhhhh! Don’t touch anything. Ladra has taken to sliding food out of its packaging — and not ordering any more take-out. Sorry not sorry, economy.

What can’t you leave your home for? Practically nothing. Except to work if you have a non-essential job.

So, non-essential workers can’t go earn their paychecks but they can go out to Winn Dixie and Rite Aid and the Post Office and the bank and the pawn shop and the local Greek eatery for take-out and the boat ramp and they can even take the trash to the county dump, because it’s open, too. They can also take a bus to get to some of those places and back, because public transit is essential. Now, it’s essential.

Even though last week’s cuts in county transit services might make you wait longer for a bus. These cuts make as much sense as all this stay-at-home-unless-this-or-that. By having fewer buses on so many routes and longer waits for them and for Metrorail, what our county officials are doing is actually cramming more people together on each of those buses and trains. That’s the opposite of social distancing.

Has anyone ever tried social distancing on a half full bus? They better all be those super long accordion buses.

“Just cutting the service by slowing down means you increase the headways,” said Jeffrey Mitchell, president of the transit workers union, referring to the time to wait between each bus or train. “On routes that are heavily run, you don’t want more headway because that means more people are going to get on the bus.”

The 11 and 27, for example, are heavily used routes and the county should be putting more buses on them, not less. “With more buses, you’re less likely they’ll be full and more likely they’ll be light,” Mitchell said. And then people can practice social distancing on the bus or train.

One of the many crazy executive orders issued and then amended by Gimenez says we can’t have more than 10 people congregated in one place, but an exception is made for “individuals traveling by car, bus, truck, train, automated people mover, mass transit, or other powered vehicle, or waiting at a bus stop, Metromover or Metrorail station.” Why is that? Are buses and mass transit spaces COVID19-free environments? If that’s the case, let’s camp out on the train.

Hardly. In fact, Mitchell says the nightly cleanings do not include any sanitizing. He has suggested a product he found on the internet, but the six figure salaries always think they know better. Or maybe they’re trying to find a way to cash in on it.

The county also suspended fares, saying that the buses and rail are essential for some people, and Ladra rides transit herself so she knows. But this is an emergency! There could still be community spread if transit isn’t shut down completely. Uber got rid of its pool service option for several passengers at a time weeks ago.

“Our operators don’t know if they have sick passengers and our passengers don’t know if they’re being exposed,” Mitchell said.

As of last week, more than one bus driver with symptoms has been tested for COVID-19. The results are not in yet — guess bus drivers are not as important as electeds. But any comes back positive, then that means that the days they were working with symptoms — because at least one driver did work with symptoms — and the days leading up to that, they could have infected hundreds of people on they bus with coronavirus. Maybe thousands. Depends on the routes.

Updated: Mitchell said Tuesday that he was going to ask to have all the operators tested after hearing that in New York City, at least 294 transit workers have tested positive and 1,700 are in quarantine.

But that’s not really why the county cut services. As it says in the press release announcing the cuts, they are “a result of the declining ridership experienced locally and nationwide.” So it’s not really for your protection. They are bleeding money.

“The department will continue to monitor the situation closely and may implement additional adjustments as deemed necessary. DTPW’s objective is to continue to provide transit services to those who need it most,” the statement said, and details of any changes (read: more cuts coming) can be found on the service updates webpage.

But as ridership goes down even more as people decide to shelter in place for real — for the healthcare workers begging us to, not the politicians — and as restaurants and schools and non-essential businesses remain closed, this is a waste of resources putting people at risk. Which, in turn, puts everyone at risk. We are making all these sacrifices so people can still get infected?

We have to start looking at things differently, reinventing ourselves in the light of this new normal that could last several months. Or beyond.

Why doesn’t the county only use transit for essential riders? First responders, hospital employees and home healthcare workers, security people, airline personnel staying over a night and people like that? They can customize the routes to better serve these people — maybe to and from nearby hotels, which are also seeing a drop in business — and add more buses, more frequently, so riders can practice social distancing. No more than 7 or 8 people on the bus, so they can sit six feet apart.

Abuela who needs go to the doctor or the pharmacy for her blood pressure medication and the dad who needs more groceries should be able to call an expanded STS system, which should be offered to anyone in need, regardless of age or ability. It’s an emergency! Put the displaced bus drivers and train operators in a bunch of cars — doesn’t the county still have a few hundred sitting in a parking garage somewhere? — for trips to these essential businesses.

Fortify the troops with Uber drivers. Like the “last mile home” deal the county made with the ride sharing (or not) service in September, 2016, to take people to and from their Metrorail stations for $3, they could do that again now. It wasn’t a good idea then — Uber as public transit — but maybe now, for a while, it can be. This is an emergency! Certainly Uber, who was forgiven hundreds of thousands in county fines when they operated without any real approval, could find it in their corporate heart to give back. Perhaps we could subsidize some of it with the federal money we’ll get reimbursed in the end.

They can capitalize on the good publicity, and they could use the support until things “normalize.” Whenever that is.

But at the very least, our leaders need to recognize that “safer at home” — except for this and that — is really not safe for any of us.

Carlos Gimenez, coronavirus, COVID19, transit

Stay home for COVID19 — unless you catch a bus, get a bite, need toilet paper added by Ladra on March 30, 2020
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