HOW SERIOUS ARE local concerns about spread of the coronavirus?
Boston’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade, an annual rite that draws hundreds of thousands of people to South Boston, has been cancelled out of what Mayor Marty Walsh called “an abundance of caution to ensure that we are doing what is needed to keep the residents of Boston safe and healthy.”
“While the risk in Boston remains low, this situation is changing very quickly and we are closely monitoring any local cases,” Walsh said in a statement announcing the parade was being cancelled. “Our top priority is preventing any new cases, to the best of our ability, and we are paying close attention to guidance from public health officials.”
The next large-scale event that Massachusetts officials will have to make a decision about is next month’s Boston Marathon, which at this point is still scheduled to take place on April 20.
But with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommending that “higher risk” individuals “avoid crowds as much as possible,” what about the place where thousands of Boston area residents find themselves in crowds every day, often twice each day — the MBTA?
Commuters on the T, especially at rush hour, are often packed into crowded subway cars, where one uncovered cough could reach a lot of people. The CDC recommendation would appear to mean older people and those with serious underlying medical conditions like heart and lung disease — the groups it says are higher risk — should avoid settings like the T, if they possibly can. And could conditions deteriorate to the point where there is a broader recommendation to avoid public transit?
On Monday, New York City officials urged residents to avoid taking the city’s subway system if at all possible, something that would be a tall order in a system that sees more than 5 million rides per day.
At this point, no explicit recommendations have been issued by the T or state public health authorities on the issue.
The T says it has increased its sanitation schedule in response to the coronavirus outbreak, with all buses, trolleys, subway cars, commuter rail coaches, ferries, and RIDE vehicles disinfected on a daily basis. The agency said all “high-contact surfaces,” such as handrails and fare vending machines, at subway stations will be cleaned every four hours.
The T also said it has also ordered hand sanitizing dispensers that will be deployed across the transit system.
At Monday’s meeting of the T’s Fiscal and Management Control Board, deputy general manager Jeff Gonneville said a public meeting about plans for bus service improvement will take place as scheduled on Tuesday evening at the Bolling Municipal Building in Roxbury. [Update: On Tuesday morning, the T announced that the meeting was cancelled.]
In a sign of the uncertainty surrounding the pandemic, Joe Aiello, the control board chairman, said he is exploring the possibility of closing off attendance by the public at control board meetings, which are livestreamed on the T’s website. “I’m not saying we’ll go there, but I just want to have it as a contingency,” Aiello said.
As of Monday afternoon, the Department of Public Health website reported that there were 41 coronavirus cases in the state — 1 confirmed case and 40 “presumptive” cases.
The DPH reported last week that 249 people were being monitored while quarantined and 470 had completed quarantine and were no longer being monitored.
At a White House briefing on Monday evening, officials stressed the low overall risk of contracting the coronavirus, but also emphasized the fast-changing situation the country and world are facing.
“This is something in motion. This is an evolving thing,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
