Truck drivers go from state to state, coast to coast, into your town and out of your town.
Millions of them happening the time across our country and others.
We are currently in a global Pandemic!
Seemingly most everybody is on lockdown in their homes, most all businesses shutdown, most all the economy shut down.
Unimaginable things going on such as curfews, quarantines, social distance orders and etc all the help combat the spread of this highly contagious virus.
What about truck drivers?
On a daily basis they are run the risk to become infected and be spreading this virus all across the country.
For example, at this moment somewhere an infected truck driver could be making a food delivery into a food packing warehouse.
The truck driver goes inside the warehouse to the office to have the bills signed and find out what dock door to back into.
While inside this driver sneezes spreading the virus inside this warehouse, it then gets caught by employees working there and then brought home to their families so on and so forth.
These types of things are happening and it’s contributing to the spread.
Let’s look at this from another angle.
Wyoming was just declared a national emergency due to Coronavirus.
Not only that but Coronavirus has now been confirmed in 20 of 23 Wyoming counties.
Why is this significant?
The United States has a population of over 328 million people.
The least populated state is Wyoming with a population of roughly 529,000 and is also the 9th largest state by size.
To give you an idea how crazy isolated Wyoming is look at it like this.
The national population density average across the United States is 94 people per square mile. Source:
www.worldometers.info/world-population/us-population/
Older source shows about 93 people per square mile. 328,000,000 people and United States is 3,531,906.00 square miles which comes to about 93 people per square mile.
Source:
www.indexmundi.com/facts/united-states/quick-facts/all-states/land-area#map
A state like Florida has population density of of 353 people per square mile.
Source:
worldpopulationreview.com/states/florida-population/
Now the state of Wyoming has a population density per square mile of…. 6.
Source:
www.states101.com/populations/wyoming
That is how crazy isolated and sparsely populated Wyoming is!
Now suddenly in nearly all the counties in Wyoming have confirmed Covid-19/Coronavirus cases!?!
How? I would bet truck drivers played a huge part in that.
How else could this virus be spreading so rapidly across such a vast isolated area while the country is on lockdown?
It makes sense, sure there might be other reasons but think about it for what is going on here truck drivers have to be contributing to the spread.
So why is this happening and what can be done about it?
Well I myself am an experienced over the road truck driver so I have some insight on this.
The biggest problem out here is many truck drivers don’t have masks and/or don’t use them or facial coverings while interacting at customers also while at truck stops (& remember we rely on public restrooms).
An infected truck driver coughing and sneezing without any facial covering can walk right into a shipping/receiving office.
What good is shutting down nearly the whole economy and ordering everybody to stay in their homes while at the same time allowing truck drivers to be spreading this virus all over and doing nothing about it?!?
It is complete madness of the highest order!!!
Another thing all these truck stops where drivers get food and rely on their public restrooms well they have become infestation zones!
They can walk right in there with no facial covering on coughing and sneezing all over the place!
You think that’s bad, try the restrooms. They at times become jam packed with lines inside waiting to use the stalls and etc again with potentially infected people coughing in a small enclosed space surrounded by a bunch of people!
How safe is that? Where is the social distancing there?
Again another disaster!
What can be done?
First of all the most important thing above all else is to get exposure out there of what is going on! Share this information everywhere! Talk about it with your friends and family etc.
We all should be outraged this has been going on and nothing has been done about! Nobody is even talking about it!
The first and most important step is to get this out there, without that there’s less hope for change and everyday this goes on the more the virus spreads, more loved ones lost.
Actions that can be taken?
That is up for discussion.
Here’s some ideas.
Require ALL truck drivers to have face masks, perhaps gloves as well.
Require ALL shippers and receivers not to interact or load/unload trailers unless the driver has a facial mask and gloves.
The department of transportation can get involved in this.
You would think this would have been done by now, it has not.
The mask/gloves aspect would make a huge difference! It can be done and I believe it should be done.
Another idea, put porta potties on site outside of truck stops.
That can help with social distancing and prevent the truck stop restrooms from becoming jam packed with people.
The main thing is please get this information out there.
I am deeply concerned over what is going on out here and I hope after reading this you are concerned as well.
Now is the time for action.
I am a nobody but together, together we can make a difference.
Thank you
Wyoming sources:
h/t Flying Poptart