Metrolinx begins air and surface sampling pilot project to detect virus
As part of Rail Safety Week, Metrolinx is turning its attention to a different kind of safety concern—hygiene.
The Metrolinx Incident Command team is continually exploring new and novel methods of enhancing the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, ensuring customers and transit employees are safe at work. During Rail Safety Week, Metrolinx conducted a pilot study of environmental sampling, looking for the SARS-CoV-2 virus in air and on surfaces.
SARS-CoV-2 is the virus that causes COVID-19 and is a member of a much larger family of viruses called coronaviruses.
Public health agencies have reported the primary mode of transmission for COVID-19 is through respiratory droplets or aerosols from an infectious person. Aerosols may linger in the air for a period of time or settle on surfaces. Although less common, touching a surface contaminated with the virus is also a potential path of transmission.
While each of the samples won’t provide an indication of infectiousness – answering the question, could you catch COVID-19 through it? – they should provide evidence if the genetic material of the virus was detected.
Final results of the sampling campaign will be made available in the weeks ahead.
Most environmental samples are collected as part of research studies in hospital or health care settings. But other transit agencies are also looking at how testing can be used to help protect riders and workers. Transport for London in the UK performed regular environmental sampling on its network late last year and did not detect any SARS-CoV-2 material in any of the locations, according to Metrolinx. This year, Network Rail in the UK also performed air and surface sampling for the virus at four of its transit stations and found only negative results as well.
Metrolinx says it will continue to take public safety seriously through the pandemic. Environmental sampling for the SARS-CoV-2 virus is just one more item on a list of more than 40 measures Metrolinx has instituted since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Because while Rail Safety Week is spending a great deal of time to remind people of big reasons to be aware around transit tracks and locations, the world has learned that small threats can also have major impacts.
