18 MBTA employees, including 12 drivers, test positive for coronavirus

Eighteen MBTA employees have tested positive for coronavirus, including 10 bus drivers and two train conductors.

General Manager Steve Poftak told T employees that in a letter to transit agency personnel on Monday, in which he said T is working with health officials to track contacts these people had and to disinfect their work stations, with additional preventative measures on the way.

“We have put in place a number of measures to address potential risks on our vehicles and facilities,” Poftak wrote. “We will be working in the coming days to add to and improve these measures. Your safety is our priority.”

Poftak wrote that of the 18 people there who now have tested positive for the virus, 10 drive buses, one conducts trolleys and another conducts subway trains.

That’s up from the five bus drivers the T announced had tested positive last week. Also last week, a man allegedly licked the pole inside an Orange Line train, leading the transit agency to take the train temporarily out of service.

The T has sharply reduced service, and ridership has dropped amid the global pandemic, and has started having all buses and Green Line trolleys board through rear doors. The T also has implemented a regime of disinfecting all stations every 4 hours, and all trains once a day in an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19, a respiratory disease that’s become a global pandemic.

The virus can stick to some surfaces for up to 72 hours.

Common symptoms of COVID-19, which surfaced in China a few months ago and has swept the globe since, include fever, coughing and shortness of breath, and the highly contagious disease can lead to life-threatening breathing issues, mainly in older adults and people with pre-existing conditions.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/2X23zep