Rhode Island warns of Covid-19 ‘car pool clusters’ as more commuters head back to the office – NBC News

Car pools are good for the environment and help ease congestion, but they can be risky in the midst of a pandemic.

Thats the warning the Rhode Island Department of Health is sounding after tracing a spate of new infections to car pool clusters.

So far, the number of infections is tiny.

Of all the people who have tested positive, roughly 15 have reported carpooling in the 14 days before symptom onset, Rhode Island Health Department spokesman Joseph Wendelken said Tuesday in an email to NBC News. They work for eight different organizations.

But Rhode Island is a tiny and very congested state. The average commute for state residents traveling by car, public transportation and other means is about 24.8 minutes, according to U.S. Census and other data compiled by the IndexMundi website.

And many Rhode Islanders commute to work in Boston, which has some of the worst traffic in the nation.

It wasnt immediately clear how many Rhode Islanders rely on car pools. But a Brookings Institution analysis of 2016 census data found that 76 percent of Americans drive alone to work and just nine percent use car pools.

Still, far more people carpool in the United States than use public transportation, according to an analysis of more recent census data by the venerable Eno Center for Transportation.

So commuters crammed into an enclosed space are a potential Covid-19 hot spot on four wheels and extra precautions have to be taken before you get into the vehicle.

You need to wear a mask the whole time, Wendelken told the NBC News affiliate in Providence. That means making sure you have your mask on before you get into the car.

Also, Wendelken added, you want to make sure youre doing a symptom check before you get in the car.

Really, everyone should be doing this if theyre heading into a workplace, to make sure that youre not experiencing any of these symptoms, he said.

It also means riding to work with the same people every day.

If people are going to be carpooling, its really important that theres some consistency there, Wendelken said.

Keep the windows cracked for air flow and err on the side of caution, he added.

We really want people to be conservative, to play it safe, and if theyre having symptoms, stay home, Wendelken said.

Rhode Island was one of the Northeastern states that was hit hard in the early days of the pandemic.

New York, however, was the epicenter of the pandemic in March and alarm bells went off in Providence after lawmakers began hearing reports of Empire State residents decamping for their second homes in tony Rhode Island towns like Newport.

Fearing an explosion of new cases, Rhode Islands Democratic Gov. Gina Raimondo in March dispatched the state police and the National Guard to stop motorists with New York plates at the border to enforce a 14-day quarantine.

I know this is unusual. I know this is extreme. And I know some people dont agree with it, Raimondo said. Its absolutely not a decision I make lightly.

Rhode Island, as of Tuesday, had recorded 26,960 confirmed coronavirus cases and 1,139 Covid-19 deaths since the start of the pandemic, according to the latest NBC News figures.

That is just a fraction of the 216,430 deaths and 7.8 million Covid-19 cases reported nationwide and Rhode Islands 1.97 percent positivity rate is the eighth lowest in the country, according to the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Research Center.

Corky Siemaszko is a senior writer for NBC News Digital.

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Rhode Island warns of Covid-19 'car pool clusters' as more commuters head back to the office - NBC News