Passenger Claimed ‘It’s My Life’ When Prompted to Wear a Mask in Public Bus

Do you know that over in the US, some people are refusing to wear a mask because it’s not a “constitutional” to force them to put a cloth over their mouth? And that people have their rights not to wear a mask?

Heck, authorities are suing authorities to stop them from coming out with policies that make mask-wearing compulsory.

That’s why it’s such a hoo-ha when President Trump was seen publicly with a mask, as that sent a strong message to others.

But you thought that this won’t happen in Singapore, whereby everyone follows the laws religiously unless you’re a Sovereign.

Think again.

Passenger Claimed ‘It’s My Life’ When Prompted to Wear Mask in SBS Bus

In a video shared on Singapore Bus Drivers Community 新加坡巴士司机 Facebook Page this morning (21 July 2020), a person filmed an altercation that happened in a public bus.

It’s unknown when this happened, though.

In it, the bus has stopped, and the bus captain was approaching a man, saying, “You listen to me first! The journey is very far. From just now…(inaudible). I never sound you in. I’ve been watching at the mirror, you’ve not been putting on your mask for very long.”

The man then replied so coolly, you could almost hear Trump clapping:

“It’s my life.”

The bus captain then said, “I know it’s your life. This is the law! This is a traffic—”

The man then interrupted, “I could have followed if you’ve told me nicely. Just now I hear the sound—the tone was aggressive, that’s why.”

The bus captain looks confused though I think he looks pixelated instead, and said, “How is this aggressive?”

“Now is different,” the unmasked man said. “Just now…alamak.”

Then a nice lady shouted, “Doors closing, toot toot toot toot toot” and the video ended while the two fellows talked about seeing each other.

Here’s the video:

Here’s the description of the video:

Bus driver only asked him to wear his mask. He was drinking n shouting and scolding the driver to his friend the entire ride, disturbing every passenger. Complaining about how people got thousands of problem and all they care is wearing a mask. Scold China, scold his attitude, slam his canned beer on the floor.

Didn’t record the whole thing cos I didn’t know he was scolding the driver, thought just another drunk. Until driver stopped and tried to talk him out of the bus, he refused and delayed everything. I was like “Can you both please get out of the bus and stop wasting everybody’s time?! YOU SHOULD BE CHARGED FOR NOT WEARING A MASK AND DRINKING AND HARASSMENT.”

Lest you’re not aware, since 14 April 2020, wearing a mask in Singapore is—

Reader Bao: Holy crap, everyone knows that!

Okay, but did you know that the guy who said “It’s my life” is wrong?

Reader Bao: Okay, that’s something new. Write on.

Many people have this misconception that wearing a mask is to protect yourself from the virus. While it does to a certain extent, the main goal is to protect others.

You see, there’s been no so-called “U-turn” in the mask-wearing policy since 14 April 2020. Instead, it’s new data that caused the change in policy.

Reader Bao: You’re an IB barking

Okay, but anyways, back in the days when Circuit Breaker was just a box in our house, experts believed that most COVID-19 patients are symptomatic, and only symptomatic patients can spread the virus. These people should always wear a mask so that they won’t spread the virus to someone else.

Therefore, four masks were given to each household—they should only be used if a person in the household is sick and need to visit the doctor. If not, they should be kept at home.

Back then, we also thought that when you’ve got COVID-19, you should always have symptoms within 14 days.

But soon, we threw everything we knew out of the window.

We realised that asymptomatic COVID-19 patients (i.e. COVID-19-positive patients who don’t even exhibit a single trace of symptoms i.e. it could be you) exist—in fact, a lot.

Many of Singapore cases are asymptomatic, too. Either that or with very mild symptoms that could be wrongly attributed to the laksa you just had for lunch.

This means just asking people who have symptoms to put on a mask won’t suffice, since you, who can still go for a 2.4km run, could well be carrying the virus in your body, too.

Therefore, everyone has to wear a mask to prevent our saliva from flying all over Singapore.

In fact, the goal is to treat as though everyone is COVID-19-positive even if one looks perfectly healthy and has just come back from Mars.

So now you know why the it-is-my-life man is wrong: when he doesn’t wear one, he’s not risking his life.

He’s risking the lives of everyone in the same bus, especially the bus captain since he’s shouting into his face.