Coronavirus: Bus driver dies from Covid-19 two weeks after video calling out woman who coughed on board

Jason Hargrove implored people to take personal responsibility during pandemic

A bus driver in Detroit who posted an emotional video calling out a woman who coughed on his bus has died of Covid-19 a fortnight later.

The union for Detroit’s Department of Transportation announced that Jason Hargrove died on 1 April. In the video, which Mr Hargrove posted to Facebook on 21 March, he describes seeing a woman board his bus and cough several times without covering her mouth.

“This coronavirus shit is for real. And we’re out here as public workers, doing our job, trying to make an honest living, to take care of our families.

“But for you to get on a bus and stand on a bus and cough several times without covering up your mouth, and you know that we’re in the middle of a pandemic – that lets me know that some folks don’t care, utterly don’t give a fuck, excuse my language …

“For a grown-ass person in her late fifties, early sixties, to stand on a fucking bus and cough four or five times without covering up your mouth, and you know we’re in the midst of a motherfucking crisis with this coronavirus – I am pissed the fuck off.”

Mr Hargrove’s union says that nearly 20 per cent of the city’s drivers are now in quarantine, seven of them having tested positive for coronavirus. Buses are still operating, albeit on a reduced schedule; passengers are boarding through read doors only in order to protect drivers.

Detroit is preparing for what could be a dramatic surge in cases of Covid-19. If the virus spreads rapidly among the city’s particularly vulnerable population, many of whom are poor and have comorbidities making them susceptible to serious illness, it could overwhelm the local health care system to an extent so far seen only in New York.

In his video, Mr Hargrove implores viewers to take personal responsibility for keeping everybody safe, demanding that they accept the risks of the virus are real and that the pandemic is already underway.

“I’m out here, we’re out here, we’re moving the city around back and forth, trying to do our jobs and be professional about what we do. Again, I ain’t blaming nobody, nobody. Not the city, not the mayor, not the department, not the state of Michigan, not the government, nobody, not the president – I blame that woman, who stood on this fucking bus and coughed.

“It’s her fault. It’s people like her, who don’t take shit for real, why this shit is still existing and still spreading.”

At a press conference, Detroit mayor Mike Duggan echoed Mr Hargrove’s words about personal responsibility. He called for the driver to be remembered, and said all Americans should watch the video he posted.

“Some of his language is graphic, but I don’t know how you can watch it and not tear up. He knew his life was being put in jeopardy – even though he was going to work for the citizens of Detroit every day – by somebody who just didn’t care. Somebody who didn’t take this seriously. And now he’s gone.”