We also asked Minister Castro about another of his portfolios, which is Transport. That came into focus during our coverage of yesterday's disaster response when we saw throngs of commuters queuing up for buses with zero social distancing. Castro said, that's a though one:
Reporter
"How is the ministry monitoring the public transport to ensure that there is sanitization happening in light of covid?"
Hon. Edmond Castro - Minister of Transport
"Well we have passed the information that every bus operator must carry disinfectants and sanitization mechanism for people to wash their hand, everyone must wear their mask and every time they reach a destination they must spray their buses. I am hoping that they are doing this, we have the people at the transport department who should be looking out to make sure that this is carried on."
Jules Vasquez
"Sir now we saw at the bus terminal yesterday, major crowding, multiple instances of it, no social distance, obviously I know it is a very hard job but obviously there is a lack of enforcement."
Hon. Edmond Castro
"Yes, is true, I don't know how best to manage that situation. If we try to manage that situation in a manner that we truly respect social distancing, then no bus will be able to leave on time. It will take probably take 30 minutes to load one bus and so I don't think that even the employees that need to get to work will have the adequate transportation to move then back and forth."
Jules Vasquez
"So then we're accepting though that because of the system of bus transport in Belize, you won't be able to line up with proper social distance because you don't have any seat assignment, you have to go in there and hustle for your seat and right now everybody want the single seater. What you are saying it is futile to try."
Hon. Edmond Castro
"Even when you get on the bus, if we ask the bus operator, if we demand them for them to only put one person per seat because of social distancing, then no bus operator will be able to run. It will be impossible for them to carry a 40 seater bus with 10 person, it will be impossible. In public transportation, is something we will have to live with Jules. If you run a taxi, the taxi man could only pick up one person and so if it's a busito, could they only carry 3 or 4? So we have to live with it and covid apparently look like it will be around a while, so we will have to tweak until we get the right mixture."
