Metro staff spray disinfectant inside the carriage.Photo: Courtesy of Shanghai Metro

"Train disinfected," reads a note in each of the carriages of metro line 2 in Shanghai. At a time when a large number of migrant people are returning to the city after the spring festival holiday, public gatherings can be potentially hazardous amid the coronavirus outbreak, cleaning and disinfection of public spaces, especially the metro station and trains have become an inescapable task.

From 9 pm to 4 am every day, 34-year-old Cao Lixiang, a cleaning staff-lead at a property management company of Shanghai Metro, together with his partner, has been tasked to clean and disinfect around 25 trains upon arrival at the base in succession.

Cleaning demands a higher level of efficiency and greater adherence to the standards than before, to curb the spread of the virus. Loaded with about 25 kilograms of diluted disinfectant on his back, Cao walks through each of the carriages and sprays every nook and corner of the train with the disinfectant, including air outlets, windows, seats, and handrails.

 "I need to walk more than 10,000 steps every night," Cao told the Global Times.  

"It is exhausting but thinking that I am contributing to the safety and health of the commuters, especially during the epidemic, makes me happy and satisfied," Cao noted, adding that the company has supplied them with protective gear to reduce the potential risk of infection.

Cao had planned to return to his hometown in Shuyang County of East China's Jiangsu Province during this year's Spring Festival. It's been three years since he was home to spend the festival with his family last time. "I promised my son I will go back this year," he said. But at the onset of the epidemic, Cao refunded his tickets and volunteered to stay.

"When the epidemic is over, I want to go back to my hometown to reunite with my family members," he revealed with a smile.

50-year-old Shen Yaozhong, a veteran leader of a train maintenance team, arrived at a metro base in Chuansha of Pudong New Area at 7:30 am Wednesday, one hour earlier than his usual shift to ensure there's more time to press the maintenance tasks.

Staff members check metro equipment.Photo: Courtesy of Shanghai Metro

After concluding daily planning and task assignment, he and his team members started daily equipment maintenance. One of their pressing tasks is timely cleaning and disinfecting the ventilation system of metro trains.

The team began replacing the air conditioning filters from the first day of Chinese lunar new year as planned when most of the Chinese people are at home enjoying family reunion. "All hard work worth it as long as we can contain the infection rate and ensure passengers' safety," Shen said.

Effective from February 3, Shanghai officially began temperature screening of commuters at nine metro stations as part of its efforts at combating the epidemic. It has expanded the practice to more stations.

Wang Xiaohong, deputy head who is in charge of six metro stations along Shanghai's metro line 2 has been on the go all day to coordinate with all kinds of station affairs from temperature screenings to disinfection to timely reporting of data.

Passengers showing signs of fever will be immediately quarantined in a designated room at the station and eventually sent to the hospital, she said. "After that, we need to disinfect all related spaces."

Wang told the Global Times public facilities in the stations need to be disinfected every four hours. Besides, security-check areas and public toilets are disinfected every hour.

In the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, Pudong International Airport station, one of the busiest metro stations in Shanghai, records about 12,000 passenger trips a day, lesser than the average 48,000 passengers on usual days, according to Wang. 

Despite that, Shanghai metro has been reinforcing cleaning and disinfection in public areas of its stations to fight the coronavirus.

Starting from Wednesday, wearing facemask is compulsory in Shanghai metro. Commuters refraining to comply will be refused entry.