When Farihah Lochan leaves her job at the 24-hour NP gas station at Caroni Savannah Road to head home, she is already thinking about how to make sure her exposure to the outside world doesn’t infiltrate her home.

She removes her clothing and leaves everything near the door to wash later in hot water, then heads to the shower, before even sharing a cuddle with her husband and baby.

Lochan is one of the many people considered essential workers by the Government, who are allowed to continue working despite consistently high numbers of new reported cases of covid19.

“It is a very scary situation. You are hearing a lot of rumours going around about the current situation, and it is very frightening and eye-opening that a lot of the public is passing away due to the virus,” Lochan said in an interview with Newsday.

While media coverage has focused on frontline healthcare staff, workers like Lochan face the brunt of exposure to the public, with added anxiety caused by not knowing who – among their hundreds of customers daily – may have covid19.

Lochan suffers from asthma. Throughout her shift, she may deal with hundreds of people who, when they stop for gas, often pop into the station’s quick shop to make a purchase. For Lochan, routine tasks like accepting customers' payments, restocking shelves or simply being close by to help a customer find an item now carries the significant risk of her contracting covid19.

With the alarming increase in covid19 cases, hospitalisations and deaths, thousands of other people have once again been catapulted to the frontlines of the pandemic – because they are recognised as “essential workers.”

Fear over workplace exposure

At a press conference the week before last, the Prime Minister further decreased the staff allowed to continue going out to work in the public sector to the most essential services.

As Anastacia Brown* watched as fewer of her colleagues turned up to their offices at the Ministry of Social Development, she started to feel afraid. She asked to be allowed to work from home, but this was denied, even though Brown said her job could be done remotely.

[caption id="attachment_891215" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Gas station workers like this one at the Barataria NP station have been out at work during the pandemic. - SUREASH CHOLAI[/caption]

She said she is scared of contracting covid19 at work and involuntarily infecting her toddler and ailing husband and elderly parents.

“I might be fine, but I could very well kill my husband, and then what would they do? The sensitivity towards my situation is not there...I’m scared!”

One of Brown’s colleagues, John Davis,* said the ministry’s project implementation and policy unit, library, and HIV departments were among those that could work remotely.

“Now more than ever it has been extremely scary...There are departments that have absolutely nothing to do with those essential services that are provided here. They could wor