While United States has been the most affected by the coronavirus pandemic, New York has been the major hotspot as the state has recorded almost third of total deaths in the country.?
As the disease continues to halt normal life, New York has been forced to shut its famed subway for the first time since 1904 as COVID-19 pushes the city to the walls.?
According to AFP, the closures from 1 am to 5 am are aimed at eliminating traces of the potentially fatal virus from the subway's 6,500 wagons -- using every cleaning technique from basic sanitiser to ultra-violet lamps.?
Authorities say conditions in New York -- the epicentre of the pandemic, with more than 19,000 deaths -- are slowly improving, but that it's too soon to relax restrictions put in place to contain the spread of virus.?
Since the pandemic hit the city, ridership has plummeted by more than 90 percent, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority that manages the network, to less than 500,000 passengers a day.Normally some 5.5 million people take the subway every day.
Now experts estimate the transit authority could lose $4-8 billion due to the pandemic.?
There were more?than?1.2?million?confirmed coronavirus cases and 73,000 deaths in the US as of Wednesday,?according to the?John Hopkins University data. Worldwide, the virus has killed over 263,000?people and infected more than 3.7?million.