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Comment by rdruxn | Hacker News Reader

Why are the subways still open? Seems like low hanging fruit to close those.

My guess would be because it's how a lot of essential workers get to work.

It might be better for the state to close the subway and pay for Lyft for all essential workers. Creates jobs for the drivers, gets essential workers where they need to be, closes the major infection channel. The drivers would be required to wear surgical masks and wash the back seat of the car before each passenger.

The subway at low usage is probably less likely to get you infected than a Lyft. You can touch basically nothing and stay 4-6 feet away from other people.

>The drivers would be required to wear surgical masks

There's already a shortage of masks for hospitals.

>wash the back seat of the car before each passenger.

You think they'd actually do that rather than getting more fares? Also, don't forget to clean every control in the back, the door handles, the inside door handles, seat belts and probably the air filter.

You expect untrained contract workers to follow procedures like that?

Yes I do, under direct supervision of the next passenger.

Because without subways many of those essential services (including health care) stop functioning as workers can't get to their jobs. Then everything goes to hell as actual mass panic breaks out.

Seems to be little appreciation on the internet for the fact that even in this situation, a big chunk of the population still has to go to work otherwise everything will collapse.

You mean not everyone can just expense a few monitors and an Aeron and cozy up?

Another reason for everyone to stay home. Reduce risk of infecting people who NEED to go out.

Thank you for saying this, it's been bothering me for days. Sure all of us computer people can lock ourselves in our houses for long periods of time. Some of us, like me, have already been doing that for years, but there are so many jobs that really are essential to keeping society functional, not just healthcare workers. For example, what about people in the building trades. Plumbing, HVAC, electrical, etc. If my furnace goes out, it needs to be fixed. Still getting pretty darn cold here at night. I could pretend like I'm camping, but that isn't going to work very well for my 8 month old.

Freight and truck are the big ones. Millions of truckers and trucks need to roll to move things. We need truck stops and gas stations to stay open to keep these moving. We need distribution centers to stay open to load and unload trucks. We need the factories that make toilet paper and baby formula and canned soup and N95 masks to stay open and fully functioning. We need the farms to stay open and the fertilizer and seed operations to stay open to provide to the farmers that are growing the crops. The pig farms and the cattle farms need to stay open and they need to be supplied to provide for meat in 6 months. And all the follow on industries that support these things.

You can't just stop all this.

Oaklander here. I watched my normal AC Transit commuter bus go by around five yesterday while I took a walk. It was empty, but I assume it’s for the same purpose, transport for essential workers.

On an interesting corollary, knowing what dangerously little I know about the MTA and its unions, are drivers griping about disease exposure? The NY subway is fairly labour-intensive as mass transit systems go...

I think the workers are going to be fine. The drivers and conductors have compartments. Station attendants have booths. The subway unions had to deal with the near-constant crime of the 70s and 80s, and didn't really want their workers out interacting with the general public. That turns out to be helpful in this case.

23 MTA employees with confirmed cases. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/23-mta-employees-sick-with...

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