I'll be totally honest, when Professor Tawfik emailed the class saying we did not have a lecture Wednesday I was happy. I had a decently bad cold that was not making life any fun and making it quite difficult to concentrate. This got me thinking about communicable diseases and viruses such as the common cold, the flue, pink eye, and various others and how they interact with our current transportation system.
Now many people can have a cold and get to work, or school on their own via personal transportation and only affect those they directly work with. But there are even more people who every day rely on public transportation such as buses and trains to get everywhere they need to be whether they are contagious or not. I say contagious because most people know that you can feel fine, but have a virus in you that can spread to others and not even realize it. All it could take to infect an entire bus is for someone with a cold to get on the a bus in the morning and grab the handrail as they climb the steps. Once this happens anyone else who grabs that handrail, sits in the same seat, or even sits near them could get the virus. Obviously public transportation systems are cleaned. According to Akron, Ohio's Metro website, each bus is cleaned "thoroughly" at the end of each day. (link at bottom of page) While this certainly would help, it does nothing for pathogens that are passed throughout the day.
My question for everyone is, would it be worth installing hand sanitizer on buses, trains or at the bus/train stops? This would obviously amount to a decent cost for any city, even a small one to retrofit dispensers in hundreds of places. But if used properly, the number of miss work days could add up to a significant amount, thus improving the community greatly. What do you think?
http://www.akronmetro.org/metro-riding-faqs.aspx
Now many people can have a cold and get to work, or school on their own via personal transportation and only affect those they directly work with. But there are even more people who every day rely on public transportation such as buses and trains to get everywhere they need to be whether they are contagious or not. I say contagious because most people know that you can feel fine, but have a virus in you that can spread to others and not even realize it. All it could take to infect an entire bus is for someone with a cold to get on the a bus in the morning and grab the handrail as they climb the steps. Once this happens anyone else who grabs that handrail, sits in the same seat, or even sits near them could get the virus. Obviously public transportation systems are cleaned. According to Akron, Ohio's Metro website, each bus is cleaned "thoroughly" at the end of each day. (link at bottom of page) While this certainly would help, it does nothing for pathogens that are passed throughout the day.
My question for everyone is, would it be worth installing hand sanitizer on buses, trains or at the bus/train stops? This would obviously amount to a decent cost for any city, even a small one to retrofit dispensers in hundreds of places. But if used properly, the number of miss work days could add up to a significant amount, thus improving the community greatly. What do you think?
http://www.akronmetro.org/metro-riding-faqs.aspx
I think that hand sanitizer will only protect people who would use it and eat without washing their hands before eating, a small group, as not everyone will use it so the bus will already be infected. A bigger worry would be airborne infections. Here you cant protect yourself by washing your hands before you eat and are at the infected's mercy. Perhaps putting masks for sick people at the bus entrance would help, but that aspect of Japan made me feel uneasy and it still relies upon others, as a surgical mask is only designed to protect others from you, not the other way around.
ReplyDeleteThis is an issue that isn’t addressed all that often. People get sick all the time, but you can’t really track exactly the route that the sickness traveled, so it’s difficult to exactly see how society is affected. This doesn’t mean that this isn’t a good idea. Sick workers cost companies a ton of money every year by not coming to work, or, worse, by coming to work and getting everyone else sick. I would imagine that public transit is one of the best ways for disease to travel. Different people are constantly entering and exiting, and are in very close quarters. Hand sanitizers would probably not be all that expensive, too, and would also make the busses and trains cleaner. I don’t take a lot of public transit, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this is already in affect somewhere.
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