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COURIER L 8 IFE, MARCH 5-11, 2021
Tales from
the pandemic
MTA staff refl ect on a year of COVID
BY MARK HALLUM
While commerce across the fi ve boroughs
came to a screeching halt one year
ago amid the outbreak of the COVID-19
pandemic, buses and trains continued
working to provide transportation services
— forcing MTA workers onto the
dangerous front lines at great personal
risk to themselves.
As the country marks the one-year
anniversary of the outbreak, 151 transit
workers have died from COVID-19.
William Mora, a 15-year NYC Transit
conductor, said that the virus seemed
to move fast among transit workers who
suddenly fell ill in large numbers, with
many succumbing to the strange new
virus.
“In February and March, some of
us started wearing masks and face coverings.
Early on the MTA told us we
couldn’t wear the masks because we
might scare the public and it wasn’t part
of our uniform,” Mora said. “Then on
March 25, I got sick myself. I had the virus.
It was mild but I had a fever for a few
days, I quarantined and was out by the
month. … Some of my coworkers passed
away or they were sick. We had a lot of
workers who were out. between buses
and trains.”
On March 6, Transport Workers
Union Local 100 pushed back against
the MTA’s policy that kept workers from
even wearing their own surgical masks,
criticizing MTA Chief Safety Offi cer Pat
Warren’s assertion that health experts
did not recommend face coverings for
those who are not sick.
“As the largest transportation network
in North America, the MTA has
led the nation in protecting its workforce
and customers — from innovative
technology to upgrade air fi ltration and
UV light disinfection, to the regional
Mask Force to distribute PPE, to plexiglass
dividers on buses and cashless
transactions,” MTA spokesman Aaron
Donovan said. “We followed CDC guidance
on mask use before overriding it to
proactively begin distributing masks to
employees in early March 2020. There is
no higher priority than the health and
safety of riders and employees — period.”
The union set to work distributing
masks to their members with the MTA
following suit after the deaths of over 30
workers by April.
“Our position – better safe than
sorry and we don’t give a damn about
dress codes in a medical emergency. As
we have said from the beginning, transit
workers who want to wear surgical/
dust masks for their own peace of mind
and safety have that right,” Local 100
YEAR OF COVID-19
An MTA workers scrubs the subway during
the COVID-19 outbreak.
Marc Hermann/New York City Transit
President Tony Utano said at the time.
The MTA pulled service back by 30
percent as fi nding people to staff train
crews became diffi cult and the riding
public stayed indoors with offi ce and
business closing. At its worst, ridership
tanked by over 90 percent.
“The only riders that we were picking
up, that were riding at the time when everything
started closing up, were homeless.
We had a real bad homeless situation
on the trains,” Mora added.
The situation ultimately resolved by
the overnight shutdowns, which started
on May 6. Agency offi cials put cleaning
crews to work scrubbing stations and
trains, social workers and NYPD offi
cers displaced homeless people from
and directed them toward services.
Only at this point did the homeless
situation seem to improve, according to
Mora.
Primary in Mora’s mind throughout
the pandemic was protecting his health
in order to keep his family safe. Now
he’s fully vaccinated.
Wayne Lizardi, an NYC Transit bus
operator who works in the Bronx, said
the fi rst three months were a time when
no one could make “heads or tails” of
what needed to be done. Transit especially
was not prepared.
“I remember it being very eerily
slow, especially the morning rush,” Lizardi
said. “We were scared, we lost one of
our operators to COVID and a countless
number of people had gotten sick from
it in the depot. The anxieties were very
high. We just thought, ‘Listen, we’re going
to end up catching this thing. It’s in
the depot, it’s on the buses.’”
BEST ATTORNEY AND
JOHN J. CIAFONE ESQ.
ATTORNEY
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