Editor’s note: The Gazette is working on a series profiling workers on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic. Please let us know if you would like to connect at newsroom@gazettenet.com.
Sometimes when Teigh Brown waits in the car for his clients at medical appointments, he finds himself worrying.
“‘What are they catching while they are in there?’” he said he’ll wonder. “It’s almost a paranoia.”
For several years, Brown has worked as a driver for Mass Express Transportation, shuttling clients to health care appointments in western Massachusetts and beyond — to doctor’s appointments, physical therapy, methadone clinics and dialysis treatments.
Brown, 45, has asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which may put him at greater risk for severe illness from COVID-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
But he’s still working. His wife worked in a West Springfield restaurant and is now on unemployment. “I wanted to make sure we have stable income coming in,” said Brown, who has two children. And he didn’t want to risk losing his job. “I like my job,” he said. “I like the people that I work for.”
Brown wears a cloth face mask that his employer provides and works hard to keep his Toyota Prius sanitized. After each client, he sprays the car with Lysol and opens the windows to air the space out. “I’m tenacious in that,” he said. “I’m trying to be as cautious as possible.”
But it’s not enough to keep his fears at bay. “I worry every day,” he said, “even with my regular clients that I pick up on a daily or everyday basis. You don’t know where they have been since they’ve been in your car. Every little cough, every little sneeze … you’re wondering, ‘Oh god, oh god, oh god. Do they have it?’”
So far, Brown hasn’t transported anyone with a known case of COVID-19. When he picks someone up he hopes “for the best”— that the person getting in the car doesn’t unknowingly have COVID-19.
“I just drive the car and hope that I don’t get sick,” he said.
After work, Brown goes home to Chicopee, where he lives with his wife and their 13-year-old daughter and 8-year-old son. He takes off his shoes outside and puts his clothes in the washing machine, making no detours along the way. “I don’t hug anybody,” he said. “I don’t talk to anybody.”
For those taking any kind of public or private transportation, Brown has a message: “Have the common decency to wear a mask,” he said. “We have families we have to go home to.”
Greta Jochem can be reached at gjochem@gazettenet.com.