‘Zero traces’ of Covid found in Manchester Piccadilly and three other major UK train stations

Manchester Piccadilly and three other of the UK’s busiest train stations are completely Covid-free, new tests have shown today.

Two rounds of testing were carried out at London Euston, Birmingham New Street, Liverpool Lime Street and Manchester Piccadilly station, and on several trains running between them, Metro reported.

Surfaces frequently touched by customers – like escalator handles, ticket machines and benches – were swabbed and sent away for lab testing. The same was done on intercity train services and hour-long air samples were also analysed.

Abhijit Tembhekar / Flickr

The experiment, led by Imperial College London, was carried out first in January and then again in June, and produced very encouraging results on both occasions.

In January, the pandemic in England was at its peak but cases dropped off by more than 50% by the end of the month. In June, however, the month started with 2,539 new cases being reported but, by the 30th, it had climbed to 21,293, back to levels last seen in January.

David Green, senior research fellow at Imperial College London, said on the study: “In the same way that a swab is used to take a Covid test in the nose and throat and sent to the lab, we use a filter to collect any virus particles in the air and swabs to collect viruses on surfaces.

“This approach provides a way of quantifying the amount of virus circulating in these public environments and the effect of mitigation strategies like cleaning and wearing face coverings.

Gerald England / Geograph

“This is part of a wider programme of work with the public transport sector to understand where this virus is most prevalent so that we can return to pre-pandemic activities as safely as possible.”

Rob Mole, the Senior Programme Manager for Network Rail’s response to the pandemic, added: “Station cleaning teams and train staff have made it their mission to keep passengers safe during the pandemic and this is proof their dedicated approach works.

“We want all passengers to travel in confidence on the railway network and we will keep doing our part by rigorously cleaning trains and stations [and] we ask passengers to do their bit too by wearing face coverings while travelling out of respect for others so we can all stop the spread of COVID-19.”

Wearing face masks onboard trains across the UK is no longer compulsory, though it is still strongly advised.