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Comment by kitsunesoba | Hacker News Reader

Masks along with general higher levels of cleanliness, especially in public transportation. I don't know what the trains are like in other countries, but between Japan and the US there is absolutely no comparison. Japan's trains are pristine next to ours.

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Cleanliness does not really matter that much. There is little evidence for mass surface transmission.

This is a disease that is spread by breathing in air contaminated by a infected person coughing or talking.

Yeah, but one thing about the subways here in Japan that I think is weird: if I ride the subway to work (11-minute ride) most of the time literally nobody talks.

Nobody uses the phone (it's bad manners here), so like the only time anybody talks is like when a group of people gets on together (not usually the case when I commute).

I mainly bike so my subway experience might not be very typical, but it's one anecdata point.

Almost all my subway-riding experiences this year have been such that 95% of the other passengers are wearing masks, and nobody talks.

Can't be the main factor, but it might be one factor.

This. Talking on the phone on public transport is considered bad manners and practically never happens. Commute trains are dead silent with the exception of friends/family/coworkers traveling together. On top of all this everyone wears masks.

I read that NY doesn't clean their subway nightly. Kind of insane considering how dirty public transit gets. At least run it through a gas chamber once a week to kill off everything.

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