Plague Bus

[Dion]

The transit position vanished with the falling ridership due to the pandemic, but I was offered a different position. I am currently driving a modified bus making three runs between Calgary and the Cargill plant, hauling 45 - 55 people back and forth 6 days a week.

Almost half the production line workers contracted COVID (over 900 cases out of 2100 employees) before they shut the plant down and spent a few million dollars to re-tool the lines so there would be some measure of security for the workers.


https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/cargill-p...tion-1.4923455

[CJSTora]

That's quite a haul. Cargill got hit bad.

[Dion]

Originally Posted by CJSTora

That's quite a haul. Cargill got hit bad.

Yes. Every time I hear someone telling me that it is all a hoax, I just suggest they should tell that to the employees of Cargill.

[CJSTora]

And here, I point at one long term care facility that is responsible for all but 6 of the province's deaths and all but two of our currently active cases.

[SilverXeno]

Originally Posted by Dion

Yes. Every time I hear someone telling me that it is all a hoax, I just suggest they should tell that to the employees of Cargill.

I think the biggest thing I have noticed with people feeling this way or just feeling like "it's not that bad" ... population/population density has a lot to do with it.

I have friends that own a commercial farm in rural Iowa. They were already fairly cut-off from "the public" when C19 first started showing up in the U.S. At one point they realized, "Hey, none of us have been off the farm in 2 weeks..." so they figured...of the 20 or so people here...no one likely had it. So they just kept going about the farm as usual. The family units kept getting together (they all live within the boundaries of the farm). The only thing that really changed is my friend stopped taking her kids to storytime and baby gym.

Most of their supplies are already online purchases. The few things they need from town...it's a small town. Things didn't disappear from the shelves and the things that did (like TP) they already had a small stockpile of b/c of auto-shipments. They sent one person out, with a mask...and he said except for the cashiers there weren't really any other people out and about...just like there normally aren't. (My friend says...maybe on a Sunday afternoon they see people...but generally, if they do most of their supply runs during the business day they don't see a lot of people.)

In my area...we've got a lot of nursing and care homes that are just rampant with it...but less than 100 deaths. And we have a pretty large [population] county. But we are a weird mix of one large metro area...suburbs...and rural farming cities. But when C19 first started closing things down...we were already out for spring break! Technically my last day of school was March 9 or 10. The kids were March 13. So about the first week that people started to get really serious about avoiding it, we were already at home. And while our stupid governor did take like 3 weeks to make a decision our local and county leaders had already stepped in.

If you live in a place that is rife with it...people are appropriately nervous and taking precautions. If you live in a place where you aren't seeing a lot of infections...people are like, "What's the big deal?" I mean...I know it's a big deal. I am actively working to ensure our family stays safe...my husband is at risk b/c he has scar tissue in his lungs so if he gets it...he's more likely to have complications like pneumonia.