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New York MTA is battling COVID-19 with UV lights and infrared sensors:
New York City may be opening back up for business, but that doesn't mean everybody's ready to hop aboard its trains and buses yet. While daily ridership on subways and buses is up 380,000 compared with the period before the June 8 reopening date, that's still a fraction of the millions of riders who commuted in the pre-pandemic days.
[...] Last month, the MTA began shutting down the subway system between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m.daily -- the first time it's ever done so -- to disinfect the cars. Foye made the point that it wasn't simply a cleaning, but actually disinfecting the cars, and noted it happens twice a day.
At the same time, the agency launched a $1 million pilot program to use ultraviolet light to sterilize its cars. The MTA plans to deploy 150 mobile devices at stations and rail yards to test the effectiveness of UV, and Foye said that the early research conducted by Columbia University has been promising.
Meanwhile, cycling naturally enforces distance, is faster, and costs nothing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 20 2020, @12:06PM
Interesting.
Usually the wind is not directly head or tail. As part of some aero research years ago I rigged some yarn tufts out in front of a normal bike at different heights. Turned out that differential cooling on my cheeks let me point my face into the relative wind direction quite accurately (lined my head up with the tuft).
Racers echelon off to one side to enjoy the draft of the pack leader (reduced power required), but in the virus case we should echelon off the other side, to avoid the wake of the lead rider. More work, but less chance of infection.