Mumbai: How BEST shields its staff from Covid-19

A BEST bus conductor with 29 years of service, Subhash Todankar, 52, was back on the job some months ago, after battling Covid-19

The BEST Undertaking has managed to avoid high infection numbers in the second wave of Covid-19 among employees. It has kept the figures of those affected below 300 as of April 2021. The highest number of positive employees in the Undertaking was 767 in July 2020.

As per the statistics released by the medical department of BEST Undertaking, the number of cases increased from 38 in April 2020 to 767 in July 2020. By December 2020, the cases were steadily brought down to 65 and 3 in February 2021 when the second wave began. After this in March, the cases increased and went up to 274 in April 2021, which is low as compared to the peak in July 2020.

"We have been taking precautions and preparing even before the infection strikes. We start by Covid-19 testing camps for early diagnosis at all workplaces, and segregate all those suspected and treat the infected. Beds are arranged at Covid-19 centres for optimum treatment. The health of infected employees is monitored twice daily by five-minute telephonic talk and we transfer them to advanced centres if needed. The BEST Undertaking has also procured and supplied the required quantities of Remdesivir and provided financial assistance for special tests to employee patients," Dr Anil Kumar Singal, pulmonologist and BEST's chief medical officer, said.

In addition to this, the administration has declared special paid leave to employees with comorbidities and to those who came in contact with Covid-19 patients. Moreover, to boost the immunity of employees, over two lakh strips of multivitamin pills have been distributed at all bus depots.

Singal said that about 80 per cent of the 34,000 employees had received the vaccines, of which about 50 per cent had received both the doses as of Sunday. He said as per the statistics, it was clear that the second wave of Covid-19 has shown minimum impact on BEST employees whose recovery rate over past nine months constantly remains above 90%.

Staff affected
>>April 2020: 38
>>May 2020: 313
>>June 2020: 314
>>July 2020: 767
>>August 2020: 457
>>September 2020: 476
>>October 2020: 278
>>November 2020: 120
>>December 2020: 65
>>January 2021: 80
>>February 2021: 30
>>March 2021: 148
>>April 2021: 274