Anonymous
Source: MTD Santa Barbara
On September 8, 2020, MTD confirmed that an employee has tested positive for Coronavirus (COVID-19). The employee had been working as a bus operator and began feeling unwell after work on the evening of Friday, September 4th, 2020. This employee has not worked since, and has self-isolated. The last time the individual was at an MTD facility interfacing with other employees or the public was in the early afternoon of September 4th. The employee wore a required face covering throughout their shift per MTD and County Public Health requirements. MTD has conducted thorough contact tracing and to MTD’s knowledge the employee was not in close contact with other employees or members of the public. Per CDC guidelines, close contact is defined as within 6 feet for 15 minutes or longer.
Per Centers for Disease Control (CDC) guidelines, MTD has identified and notified other MTD employees who may have used the same equipment or vehicles as the positive individual.
All MTD employees have been notified of this test result and specific employees who have been identified through contact tracing have been sent home for self-isolation and testing, and have been directed to contact their healthcare provider if they exhibit symptoms as defined by the CDC.
The operator who tested positive drove the following routes for the 48 hours prior to becoming symptomatic:
Any passenger who rode on the routes listed above at the times listed and believe they may have come within 6 feet of the bus operator for over 15 minutes should monitor themselves for possible symptoms and contact their healthcare provider if any symptoms develop.
While continuing to provide essential service to our community, the safety and wellbeing of our passengers and employees is the foremost consideration of MTD. To that end, enhanced cleaning protocols have been implemented since early March. These protocols include nightly disinfecting of all high-touch surfaces in buses with a hospital-grade disinfectant.
All vehicles or areas the employee who tested positive may have come in contact with have received additional disinfecting above and beyond MTD’s already enhanced cleaning regimen.
MTD will not share personally identifiable information of employees or customers out of respect for individual privacy and in keeping with HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) protections.
For more information about MTD and our response to the COVID-19 pandemic, please visit our website at www.sbmtd.gov
Why all the pussyfooting around as to the sex of the driver? “This employee,” “the individual,” “the operator,” “the bus operator.”
Jesus, Mary and Jerome, this isn’t a game of 20 questions. What is to be gained by not saying whether the bus driver was male or female? “Respect for individual privacy” has nothing to do with HIPAA guidelines as long as the driver’s identity isn’t disclosed. I would think that MTD passengers should at least be told the sex of the driver, so they could maybe recall who was driving the bus they might have been aboard.
This political correctness crap has got to stop, especially when it comes to deliberately obscuring important information in a news story.
Why all the pussyfooting around as to the sex of the driver? “This employee,” “the individual,” “the operator,” “the bus operator.”
Jesus, Mary and Jerome, this isn’t a game of 20 questions. What is to be gained by not saying whether the bus driver was male or female? “Respect for individual privacy” has nothing to do with HIPAA guidelines as long as the driver’s identity isn’t disclosed. I would think that MTD passengers should at least be told the sex of the driver, so they could maybe recall who was driving the bus they might have been aboard.
This political correctness crap has got to stop, especially when it comes to deliberately obscuring important information in a news story.
Who cares about what sex the driver is? They list the routes and times the bus was being driven.
Who cares about what sex the driver is? They list the routes and times the bus was being driven.
Respect maybe? Gender doesn’t matter to what is going on. It is good to see the detailed post with their full schedule. That is what matters.
Respect maybe? Gender doesn’t matter to what is going on. It is good to see the detailed post with their full schedule. That is what matters.