15/05/2020 05:00 – Updated: 05/18/2020 02:31
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The New York subway is a splendid kingdom of microorganisms. A network of varied and invisible colonies, but very powerful, according to a study completed in 2015. The scientists, who spent 17 months collecting samples of bars, turnstiles and seats, they discovered germs they did not even know existed. 28% of the cultures found were invulnerable to antibiotics and there were elements related to anthrax and bubonic plague. The diversity of New York, of its neighborhoods, had its other side in this captivating biological concoction.
“This vast urban ecosystem is a valuable resource that requires vigilance to maintain and secure against acts of bioterrorism, environmental disturbances and disease outbreaks “said the study, led by Dr. Christopher E. Mason of Cornell University.
Sometime this year, a new general joined this bacteriological empire. As if it were a settler planting his boots on an exotic continent, with its skulls and carabiners, SARS-CoV-2, better known as coronavirus, took over the world’s largest metro system and began to dig its gold mines in the body of thousands of New Yorkers.
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The real impact of the subway on infections, however, is a matter of discussion. On April 13, economist Jeffrey Harris of MIT University published a report entitled ‘The subway sowed the massive coronavirus epidemic in New York City‘. Harris compared the data on subway use with the infections in each neighborhood and argued that the recent flattening of the curve has had to do with the 65% decrease in subway use.
The study spread through dozens of media and fueled apprehension among New Yorkers. Before the pandemic, in the old normality, an average of 5.5 million people they used the subway daily. An arterial network of 500 stations and 400 kilometers of routes whose wagons circulate full of passengers, often late. Harris’s study caused concern, but several scientists have expressed doubts about its conclusions.
“Their study argues that the flattening of the curve is associated with the drop in the use of the subway. But the drop in the use of the subway is associated with social distancing measures, ”says Philip Cooley, an expert in computational biology at RTI International, a non-profit scientific institution, by phone to El Confidencial. “It is difficult to separate cause and effect in this situation.”
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Cooley has been studying the spread of different pathogens for more than half a century. In 2009 he estimated that, in New York City, 4.4% of H1N1 flu infections they had occurred on the subway system. A calculation that still cannot be made with the new coronavirus due to lack of information. “The most important difference between the 2009 pathogen and this one is that in 2009 we had an estimate of acquired immunity,” says Cooley. “The children had no defenses against that flu, but the adults had substantial immunity, they were not infected as much, hence the relatively low ratio of 4.4% on the subway.”
An innocent defendant?
The scientist is reluctant, for lack of evidence, to blame the New York subway. “There are three subway systems substantially larger than New York’s and they have never been specifically linked to the flu or covid-19,” he continues. “I think it is an interesting proposition to say that the subway played a role in the spread of covid-19, but, in the conversations that I have seen, it has certainly not been proven. “
Other researchers, like the mathematician Alon Levy, also point to the lack of scientific evidence. “The subway is probably not the reason New York is a disaster area,” Levy wrote on his blog. The author separates the possible incidence of the virus among passengers, from the proven, and lethal, incidence among transportation employees. “Contagion at work is not the same as contagion while traveling.”
A railway employee dies from covid-19 after a passenger spit on her
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Metro employees have been particularly hard hit by the pandemic. At least a hundred workers have lost their lives and more than 2,500 have tested positive for covid-19. Rates higher than those of first aid workers. “We work at the epicenter of the epicenter,” writes Sujatha Gidla, a subway driver and novelist. “At first they warned us not to wear masks. The transportation authority said we would spread panic. Then they said we could bring our own masks. But by then they were hardly sold. “
Gidla describes the illness and deaths of her co-workers, in Domino effect. People with whom days before he hugged and shook hands. She herself fell ill with covid-19. On March 27, after experiencing chills, muscle aches and a dry cough, she collapsed in the bathroom at her home.
Metro employees have been particularly hard hit by the pandemic. At least a hundred have lost their lives and more than 2,500 have tested positive
The transportation authority, the MTA agency, defends itself against these accusations and highlights the little preparation of the US government. “The MTA had security protocols, but it wasn’t really prepared for this kind of pandemic,” Nicole Melinas, an urban economics expert at the Manhattan Institute, says by phone. “The MTA says they were listening to the national government, which advised not to wear masks and said that the risk was lowered by frequent hand washing. But the government was late to understand the scale and depth of this. “
NY studies reopening
As the contagion curve is contained, with hospitalizations back to March levels and five times fewer daily deaths than a month ago, the city is studying the reopening. A reopening that will be impossible without the subway system: the only way to feed the bloodstream of the skyscrapers.
“This is the existential problem of the city. Manhattan imports two million people a day who come to work and later return to their neighborhoods. The financial district cannot exist unless people can get there, and the only way is mass transit, ”says Gelinas. “80% of the people come by public transport. 20% by car. If your transportation use fell 1%, you would see more than 10% of the increase in traffic in Manhattan. Going on, you would go faster ”.
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The economist suggests different measures to lighten the use of the metro and allow the distance of passengers, such as transform streets into bike lanes. “If we did it with Third Avenue, you could go from the Bronx to Brooklyn through Manhattan”, He declares. “The only solution for the metro and buses is to offer the greatest possible service, so that the trains and buses are less crowded. And that everyone wears masks. But there is no perfect solution ”.
The metro system is already applying extraordinary measures. For the first time in 115 years, the tunnels close every night, from one to five in the morning, for operators to thoroughly clean the trains. A measure that, in addition to affecting transportation, leaves hundreds of homeless people without shelter.
The reopening of the metro would face two challenges: the logistical and the contagion
The reopening of the subway would face two challenges: the logistics and the contagion. “What the city has to do is determine what proportion of people have been infected with the virus and how many of them never had symptoms,” says Philip Cooley. “Also what are the benefits, if any, of having been exposed.”
A third problem would be financing. “The transportation system cannot afford to do this on its own, because it has lost more than 90% of its fare income,” concludes Gelinas. “So the money to offer a frequent service, with 20% or 40% of the usual use, would have to come from the national government.”
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