Transit, flu not linked, study says
A study published by New York University researchers Tuesday ought to give New Yorkers more faith the subway is safe from the spread of COVID-19.
The researchers in March launched a deep dive into the rate of influenza deaths in 121 U.S. cities between 2006 and 2015, and compared them with mass transit usage.
New York — where roughly 57% of the population relies on mass transit — had one of the lowest rates of flu deaths during the 10-year period.
The same trend was seen in cities across the country, from transit-heavy cities like Seattle to transit deserts like Dayton, Ohio: The more people who cram together on trains and buses, the fewer die from the flu.
There’s little research so far on the difference between how COVID-19 and influenza spread among populations, but Sherry Glied — dean of NYU’s Wagner School of Public Service who helped author the study — said it’s worth noting the correlation because they’re both viral respiratory diseases.”
“COVID could spread quite differently from influenza,” said Glied. “What we studied is influenza, but a lot of what we’ve thought about in COVID is based on an influenza-like model.”
Glied and other NYU researchers launched the study in the early days of the pandemic as more than 85% of straphangers fled the subway. Some preliminary research from March and April suggested the subway was a major vector for the spread of COVID-19.
“No matter how we turn this thing upside down and backward, there doesn’t seem to be any correlation at the city level in terms of how they die from influenza,” said Glied.
“The way people behave on subways is not the way people behave in environments we’ve seen COVID spread a lot,” she said. “People don’t talk a lot on the subways, for one.”
Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials hope the study will give riders faith it’s safe to return to the subway. Ridership remains down by more than 60% from before the pandemic — and the lost fares have led the agency to request $12 billion in relief from Congress.