The pandemic has transformed multiple aspects of our everyday life, including the way we use public transport, where passengers end up in close quarters with one another. So naturally, things on board can get a little tense.

One woman claims she was recently taking the bus home and found herself in an awkward situation. An older lady, who wanted to sit by herself because she didn’t feel safe next to other people, demanded the woman give up her place.

The woman had just finished an 8-hour day at work and was 18 weeks pregnant. So as you might imagine, she didn’t want to get up in a moving crowded bus and risk falling down either.

The situation kept escalating and resulted in enough drama to make the woman question if she was the a***ole in the conflict.

Image credits: mitchazj (not the actual photo)

Image credits: BusSeat_1234

The old lady’s concerns are understandable. Generally, public transport ventilation systems are less effective than those, for example, on airplanes, where the air in planes is recirculated through sophisticated HEPA (High-Efficiency Particulate Air) filters every few minutes.

Plus, keep in mind that noisy environments in which people must lean in and shout to be heard are at higher risk than quieter spaces in terms of virus transmission. It’s thought to be one of the reasons why nightclubs, bars, or meat-packing plants have experienced high levels of contagion.

Here’s a diagram, published by researchers in the BMJ, that explains this phenomenon in more detail.

Besides, a 2020 Chinese study looked at how seating proximity affected transmission risk on trains. By tracing the journeys and seating of more than 2,000 people carrying the virus on China’s high-speed train network between December 2019 and March 2020, the researchers were able to see how the virus had moved between people.

Sitting in the same row, especially adjacent, carried the highest risk in this particular setting. It seems that the backrests between rows on the train type they looked at – a high-speed Chinese intercity train – might’ve acted like somewhat of a barrier. People sitting on the same row on an intercity journey may also have needed to pass each other at close quarters to visit the toilet or for refreshments. (Importantly, though, the researchers didn’t rule out that transmission on rows was higher because people sitting adjacent are more likely to be family and friends, already in close contact.)

However, if health was her primary priority, the old lady should’ve considered the woman’s pregnancy too. Falling for two can lead to:

• placental abruption;
• broken bones in an expectant mom;
• altered mental status;
• fetal skull injury.

Some experts even claim that offering your seat to seniors on public transport can hamper their health. Instead, the elderly should be “encouraged to stand and discouraged from taking it easy in order to keep themselves fit,” Sir Muir Gray, a professor at Oxford, said.

Gray, a clinical adviser to Public Health England, explained that “We need to be encouraging activity as we age — not telling people to put their feet up,” he told the British Medical Journal. “Don’t get a stairlift for your aging parents, put in a second banister.”

A recent study noted that too much sitting and not enough physical activity can age cells by up to eight years. And previous research has already linked too much sitting to health problems such as obesity, higher levels of “bad” cholesterol, and an increased risk of cardiovascular disease.

Aladdin Shadyab, the lead author of the paper, noted, “Discussions about the benefits of exercise should start when we are young, and physical activity should continue to be part of our daily lives as we get older, even at 80 years old.”

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Of course, circumstances change if someone has a condition that affects their movement but surely the old lady could’ve picked another ‘target.’

People think the woman had every right to stay seated

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