MTA workers dying from coronavirus at triple the rate of agencies that employ NYC first responders

New York Daily News ^ | Apr 08, 2020 | 3:43 PM | Clayton Guse

[JayGalt]

Coronavirus is spreading like wildfire through the MTA’s workforce, killing the agency’s employees at three times the combined rate of the city police and fire departments, which employ first responders like cops and EMS crews.

At least 41 members of the MTA’s 71,000-strong work force have died from COVID-19 over the last two weeks. That compares with 11 NYPD employees and two FDNY employees — agencies that together employ about 72,000 people, roughly as many as the MTA.

Besides NYC Transit, which runs the city’s subways and buses, the MTA includes the Metro-North and Long Island railroads and MTA Bridges and Tunnels, which operates the Triborough Bridge and other crossings.

[JayGalt]

Many frontline employees said the agency’s decision to follow guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that advised people not to wear protective face masks allowed the virus to spread rapidly among workers during the first few weeks of March. ..snip..“A diabolical person could not have engineered a better spreader of the virus than the New York City subway system,” said Samuelsen. “Transit workers, by the very nature of the work we do, we develop lung disorders at a disproportional rate. We breathe in diesel fumes, steel dust, manganese from welding. When I started as a track worker in the ’90s, a lot of the old-timers who were on the job then later died of lung disease.”

[JayGalt]

It’s an April 8th article but I didn’t find it posted when I searched as MTA title.
The CDC has a lot to answer for, as does China, WHO, Democrats and the “news”.
CDC badly needs a spring cleansing & thinning of the upper level herd. Someone from the military/business to oversea the bureaucrat types and epidemiologists.

[Vaquero]

It’s spending up to half your day underground that’ll get you.

[Theoria]

First responders, in general have high higher health and fitness standards than a typical mta worker. Diabetes and other health concerns are already a problem with such workers.

[HangnJudge]

Filthy working conditions, all a part of the NYC mix, guaranteed to spread pandemic

[hoosiermama]

Was “Something” released in the tunnels and subways? Someone targeting them? It’s happened elsewhere at other times! Just saying.

[GulfMan]

What? They’re allowing their folks to die because they have to collect tolls at bridges?

[eastexsteve]

This stuff is much more airborne than what they told people it was. You could tell this from the start just looking at the speed and rate of infection.

[gunnut]

I also suspect that transit workers tend to have more underlying medical conditions than fire and police.

[P.O.E.]

So something anybody could have predicted months ago is what they call “news”.

[livius]

Also a lot of the MTA employees are black, and for some reason blacks have a higher death rate from the virus. I read an interesting theory that it might be because of lower Vitamin D levels, which weakens the immune system...but this might also apply to all underground workers.

And of course there is the fact that the tunnels, the platforms and the trains are just plain filthy, at least in part because of the homeless colonies encamped there. I’m hoping that one good thing to come out of this might be an improvement in public sanitation and the enforcement of the old laws prohibiting public urination, defecation, spitting on the streets, etc.

These are the “quality of life” laws that DeBlasio does not want enforced, but they were actually originally health laws.

[Bell Bouy II]

typical MTA worker,

http://www.jackiegleason.com/ralph.html

[FreedomPoster]

This would seem to bolster arguments for public transit being quite the transmission Petri dish.

[polymuser]

de Blasio’s fault. All the way.

I’m sure he attended the 2019 Event 201 shindig in NYC, or was highly aware of it as NYC mayor.

https://afludiary.blogspot.com/2019/10/johns-hopkins-pandemic-table-top.html?m=1

https://www.freethink.com/articles/global-pandemic-preparedness-plan

[RedMominBlueState]

Very sad, but still only half of one percent of the MTA work force. The subway was a naturally efficient spreading mechanism, but I am beginning to wonder if there was also an outside “super spreader” or two involved. Hmmmm.......

[redshawk]

Tokyo 1995
Aum Shinryukyu
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_subway_sarin_attack

[Mr Ramsbotham]

At least 41 members of the MTA’s 71,000-strong work force have died from COVID-19 over the last two weeks.

My God, they're dropping like flies.

[realcleanguy]

Yep, no better way to infect the heart of the financial center of the USA than the subway system of NYC. Now with the surrounding areas where the trains and subways go, this accounts for over 60% of all US cases for the virus. Was it terrorism? Or planned? Did a group cleverly plan this to sway the elections? de Blasio and Cuomo and the NYC medical chief all said “It’s ok, it’s just a cold, nothing to worry about, take the trains, come into the city and have fun”. Those three encouraged people to get infected. No doubt Bin Laden while burning in hell is saying “Why didn’t I do that instead of the WTC”? I’m not saying that someone working for the Democrats infected the subways just to destroy the economy so the Democ4ats could win the elections, but.....seems suspicious

[Captain Walker]

They certainly tend to be older than the police and firefighters.

[SkyDancer]

I remember as a little girl in a car driving through one of those NYC tunnels and there was this guy sitting in a chair just watching traffic pass. I wonder how old he was when he died of inhaling all those fumes.