Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)

[Undertoad]

MIT Paper shows that the NYC subway has been a major point of infection.

The longer time you spent on the train, the greater your chances of infection.

Also the Mayor never shut the subway down, but in lockdown busses and trains were the only mode of transportation -- and the subway had fewer trains running, ensuring that each train was full...

New York City’s multitentacled subway system was a major disseminator – if not the principal transmission vehicle – of coronavirus infection during the initial takeoff of the massive epidemic that became evident throughout the city during March 2020. The near shutoff of subway ridership in Manhattan – down by over 90 percent at the end of March – correlates strongly with the substantial increase in the doubling time of new cases in this borough. Maps of subway station turnstile entries, superimposed upon zip code-level maps of reported coronavirus incidence, are strongly consistent with subway-facilitated disease propagation. Local train lines appear to have a higher propensity to transmit infection than express lines. Reciprocal seeding of infection appears to be the best explanation for the emergence of a single hotspot in Midtown West in Manhattan. Bus hubs may have served as secondary transmission routes out to the periphery of the city.

[Carruthers]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

MIT Paper shows that the NYC subway has been a major point of infection.

The longer time you spent on the train, the greater your chances of infection.

Also the Mayor never shut the subway down, but in lockdown busses and trains were the only mode of transportation -- and the subway had fewer trains running, ensuring that each train was full...

It's the same in London.

Second week of lockdown and Tube still packed with only 43% of trains running.

Transport for London has confirmed that only 43% of services are running on the Tube despite carriages still remaining packed.
Some London Underground trains remained crowded on Monday despite a further fall in passenger numbers and TfL calling for its services to only be used for ‘essential journeys by vital workers in the NHS and other critical services’.
It said passenger numbers on Monday morning were down 94% compared with the same day last year, but admitted to Metro.co.uk that only 43% of trains are running at normal times compared with 50% last week.
At peak times, 50% of services are running, a spokesman said.
Passengers are still complaining about the lack of space as they travel to work, leading to them being unable to follow government guidance to keep two metres away from others.

London Underground stations, especially those on the 'Tube' where the tunnels are barely larger than the trains, aren't particularly healthy places at the best of times due to the piston effect of air being pushed ahead of the trains.
I shudder to think of the speed that infection can be spread around the network.

Metro Newspaper

[DanaC]

The difficulty though is that for a lot of people, including key workers, that's the only way for them to get to work - especially given many of the will not be able to afford to live in the borough where they work have to commute from outside the centre and hop on the subway for the last leg of it. If they got to the centre and then walked to their destination you could probably add another hour to an already long journey.

[Griff]

They better get their shit together on cleaning those. I expect they'll introduce some UV? lighting along with a better cleaning regimen. The cars get shipped up here to Elmira for service.

For our conspiracy minded friends off-shoring all our societies problems, I believe the new cars are built in China.

[DanaC]

The conspiracy nuts are too busy burning down phone masts because 5G

[Carruthers]

Originally Posted by DanaC

The difficulty though is that for a lot of people, including key workers, that's the only way for them to get to work - especially given many of the will not be able to afford to live in the borough where they work have to commute from outside the centre and hop on the subway for the last leg of it. If they got to the centre and then walked to their destination you could probably add another hour to an already long journey.

The figures for transport use, reported in the daily media briefing, would indicate that the overwhelming majority of people have heeded the plea not to travel unnecessarily.

It would have made sense in the beginning, instead of halving services, to have kept a near normal service going thereby thinning out the passenger load and associated risk of infection for those key workers.

Unfortunately, any attempt to reinstate the level of service to that end would give the impression that normality has returned with the consequent, and unwanted, increase in passenger numbers.


From another era...

[monster]

you can see it "spreading" along the freeways here in Michigan -if you look at the county by county map of cases and draw lines connecting the high areas, you've drawn the freeway system. But.... near the freeway system is where most people live..... they all go through Detroit.....

just something I notice when I see this map each day. We're the red 870, right on that freeway linke between Detroit and Chicago So easy to draw in the main North-South route too.....

[glatt]

The DC metro has dramatically reduced service and closed some stations. I can see the trains passing when I go for a walk in my neighborhood. I always look for passengers in the windows, and the most I ever saw was 3 on one train. But to be fair, they go by pretty fast and I might miss some heads when I am counting.

I wish they would shut the Metro down entirely and use this time to perform track maintenance. They will be closing sections of the track for a month or two this summer to perform maintenance, and I really don’t understand why they don’t just do it now.

[tw]

Originally Posted by glatt

They will be closing sections of the track for a month or two this summer to perform maintenance, and I really don’t understand why they don’t just do it now.

Unfortunately, the actual maintenance is only a small part of that operation. Plenty is setup is first required.

A house can be built is 3 or 4 months. But it takes years of work before that house can be built. A similar example.

[tw]

NYC once had porta-potties that disinfected themselves after each user.

Maybe we could have taxi cabs that did that?

[monster]

so why does it no longer have them?

[tw]

Originally Posted by monster

so why does it no longer have them?

You had to pay. They were expensive. It was an innovative (and maybe necessary) attempt. But it did not last.

They probably would have been more desirable in Philadelphia and San Francisco where finding a bathroom is harder.

Meanwhile what is a problem now for truck drivers? Finding a bathroom and finding a place for food - because truck drivers cannot use drive-thrus.

[monster]

it was kind of a rhetorical question....

[Griff]

Ivermectin is being studied. This is in common use veterinary medicine in the US and in the third world for people. It would be cheap if found effective.

[fargon]

"It would be cheap if found effective."
If they decide to use it , it will become $10,000 a dose. I have faith in these pharmaceutical fuckers. I read the PDF and it looks to be effective.