… and particularly those who travel to work on bus 92.
1.
Cold air doesn’t make you sick. Neither does cold air in motion. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a purveyor of superstition and if you have any doubts about the matter then just ask yourself how normal life is possible in cities where the winter weather is much more severe than here. If the popular porteño folk belief that holds exposure to air at a temperature anything less than summer hot to be bad for one’s health were true then there wouldn’t be a soul alive in Argentina south of the Río Negro, would there?
I should also say that it ill becomes healthy adults to be whining about the “extreme cold” and wrapping themselves in multiple layers of wool and gore-tex when the mercury is still very much in positive territory.
2.
Sealing yourself inside a glass and metal box with 50 or so other human beings is an excellent way to propagate infection. After every cough and sneeze all that virus hangs in the air just waiting for the rest of us to breathe it in. If there was a bit of ventilation the charge of virus-laden droplets in the air would be considerably dissipated.
And, before you even mention it, I have to say that the answer is “no”. The periodic opening and shutting of the doors to let passengers on and off isn’t sufficient to provide adequate ventilation. In the first place because, even in Buenos Aires, the doors are normally opened when the bus is stationary so there’s no through flow of air and in the second place because at rush hour the time lag between stops can be excruciatingly long.
3.
So, bearing in mind the foregoing points, please open a couple of windows on the 92 at rush hour. Even if you don’t wish to do so yourself at least you could refrain from acting the gobshite and slamming shut the window that has been opened 2 cm by another passenger.
