Have you ever put your hand on the seat of a bus and then put it in your mouth? That’s what toddlers do.
No one should, though, because some people put the soles of their shoes on bus seats. Grocery stores give us hand wipes because so many people handle their baskets. This is to protect us from the spread of disease (Ebola can last for hours outside the human body, as can other diseases, according to Dr. Anders Hakansson of the University of Buffalo).
No hand could compete with shoe soles. Our sidewalks have a fine coating of spit, vomit, bird and dog droppings, mucus, blood and even human waste near bars.
This is what we get to sit on or touch on buses, the cloth that shoes rub.
Young children and the elderly have low immune systems and are vulnerable. B.C. Transit told me they disinfect the seats once a day. Is that 17 hours between cleanings on some routes? You wouldn’t ask a child or a senior to sit in such filth.
Please don’t make them or anyone else sit on what you leave on public seats from your shoe soles.
Linda Kendall
Langford