Coronavirus concerns hit taxi drivers, passengers
Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula announced on March 16 that random screening will soon be conducted at all train stations and taxi ranks.
East Rand Mall taxi rank passengers and taxi drivers are calling for government to provide them with masks and hand sanitisers to protect themselves from the coronavirus.
According to Boksburg commuters and drivers, they are at a high risk of contracting the virus because they sit close to each other and they touch each other’s hands when they collect taxi fees.
A local taxi driver, Kleinbooi Makuwa, said he now travels with a bottle of water which he uses to wash his hands when he offloads passengers at their destinations.
“Basically, we don’t have anything to protect ourselves with at the moment. We can only rely on water of which not many of our passengers use the taxi rank’s tap. I tried to go and buy for myself a hand sanitiser at a local store but they were out of stock,” Makuwa said.
Makuwa said they are now concerned when someone sneezes or coughs inside the taxi because they won’t know if he or she is infected or not.
A commuter, Mpho Ditaole, urged the government to disinfect taxi ranks and minibuses to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
“We are not safe because we touch people’s hands when we exchange monies and we touch various taxi door handles when we board taxis in the morning when we go to work and in the afternoon,” said Ditaole.
Santaco chief strategic manager Bafana Magagula said they had a meeting on March 19 to discuss plans on how to curb the spread of coronavirus in taxis and taxi ranks.
“We will try and discuss measures that can be taken to prevent our customers from being infected because we rely on them for the taxi business to continue to operate,” Magagula said.
President Cyril Ramaphosa on March 15 declared a national state of disaster, following the outbreak of the coronavirus in South Africa.
So far, there are 116 confirmed cases of the Covid-19 coronavirus in South Africa.
