Covid-19: The safety of Prague’s public transportation system confirmed

10. 06. 2021

Recently, large-scale testing of Prague‘s public transportation system for signs of Covid-19 transmissibility was initiated by the Prague Public Transit Company (DPP). The extensive testing of the system, which was carried out in April 2021 by researchers from the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences (CAS), found no evidence of the infectious presence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

The analysis included the testing of a total of 558 samples taken from buses, trams, train sets, platforms and metro vestibules. These tests confirmed the conviction that Prague‘s public transport system was a safe environment for its passengers and that the system was, and is not a source of Covid-19 infection transmissibility when basic precautions and proper hygiene rules are followed.

The research, in which scientists from the Biological Center of the CAS and the Faculty of Science of the University of South Bohemia also collaborated, was the first of its kind to be conducted in the Czech Republic. A total of 588 environmental surface and air samples were taken to detect the presence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

The researchers obtained 154 samples from bus interiors, 160 from trams, 126 from train sets and 52 from metro platforms and vestibules. Using specialized equipment designed to measure air quality, another 66 samples were taken from the interiors of vehicles and metro stations.

The samples were all taken in early April 2021, a period in which the Covid-19 pandemic was at a peak in the Czech Republic. Surfaces were tested when vehicles had either returned to a depot or when they were at a turnaround point – that is, before cleaning and after being full of passengers. Unlike the surface testing, air testing was done with passengers present.

The inspiration for this Covid research was similar studies carried out last autumn and again this spring by Transport for London. However, the tests conducted by DPP and the Czech Academy of Sciences were more extensive, with a larger number of samples taken. They also took samples from all of the primary different modes of public transport, unlike in London, which focused on the underground.

100% of Samples Were Non - Infectious

Each sample taken was first analyzed using A-QCM biosensors, specially modified by scientists from the Institute of Physics of the AVČR, to detect the presence of disease pathogens on surfaces. Subsequently, each sample was taken to the laboratories of the Faculty of Science of the University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice for examination using the standard qRT-PCR test. The first procedure works to detect the presence of the viral protein. The PCR test then captures the genetic information of the virus.

Out of the total of 558 samples, only 6 (i.e. roughly 1%) showed any detectable presence of viral material.

The biological viral samples were then taken to the laboratories of the Faculty of Science where they were cultivated and tested for infectivity at intervals of 3, 6 and 9 days using the above-noted standard qRT-PCR test method. These subsequent tests showed, in each case, at each of the different timing intervals, that the viral particulate matter found was inanimate and non-infectious.

“Using the combination of the PCR tests, the new biosensors and the subsequent cultivation of suspicious samples allowed us to get a good, representative overall picture of the presence and infectivity or, in this case, the non-infectivity of the virus in public transport. The results of the study gave us clear evidence that there was no danger of virus transmission to passengers in Prague's public transportation system, provided other basic hygiene rules were observed,” stated Alexandr Dejneka, Analysis Coordinator from the Institute of Physics of the CAS.

Read about the start of the tests here.

Download the full press release here.

Covid-19: The safety of Prague’s public transportation system confirmed

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