1) I’ve not been inside a NY subway car, but I have ridden BART, the DC metro, the Paris metro, the Lyon metro, and a few regular trains. I know that they have the potential to be very dirty, but I also go to microbiology conferences where the issue of preventing disease outbreaks is routinely discussed.
I look at internet pictures of the NY subway stations and trains, and I see that they have the engineering controls built in to minimize the spread of disease. Hard surfaces (easy to clean), metal surfaces (antimicrobial properties), the air blown in from the top of the train, with the out vents presumably under the seats, so that a downward air flow carries germs outside while minimizing the amount of air rebreathed by passengers, etc. Also, the cars are cleaned frequently (https://www.brickunderground.com/live/subway-cleaning-nyc).
2) No. I attribute high Covid-19 rates to factors such as sending Covid-19 patients to nursing homes which are ill-equipped to deal with dangerous infectious diseases. If the subway were the problem, then why haven’t other places with subways been equally affected?
Yeah, like Philadelphia's or Boston's subways, or Chicago's L, or London's tube, all of which are partly of the same generation as NYC's?