VOA常速英语:南非出租小巴成为新冠病毒温床

The humble minibus taxi is a lifeline for more than 70 percent of south Africa's workforce. But health experts worry this system is a breeding ground for coronavirus, because of riders' close quarters and the high volume of passengers. A new South African non-profit initiative led by a businessman, who was also the eldest son of president Cyril Ramaphosa, is trying to address this gap. When we insisted as business and as south Africans, let's open this economy by not dealing with the commute, we basically undid what was happening with lockdown. So if you deal with the transport sector, because covid is a virus that moves through the transport sector. If you deal with that effectively, you could actually put in an artificial lockdown. HIV researcher Dr. Jenny

Pfeiffer Coetzee, founder and director of the African Potential Foundation, says her team has come up with several solutions, ranging from simple to complex.
What we're looking at is a system very similar to what's being used in ambulances, and that is to adapt a UVC air filter that allows the airflow to be encouraged within the taxi, using various fans within the filter. And air passes through the filter, where it's then irradiated within a matter of seconds, and is then transferred back out into the taxi to be circulated out of the taxi. Her team is also considering an alarm system, that alerts passengers to open the windows to allow fresh air to circulate. At sanitizing stations that passengers can use to clean their hands before boarding, and at a divider between the driver and passenger. "That last intervention," says Ramaphosas business partner Brad Fisher,"is especially crucial." He says the government's efforts- sanitizing taxis- only work up to a point. But you can spray this rank to death once you get into the taxi, where there's a closed environment, it’s a capsule. With whatever it is, whether it's filled with ten people's epidemic, that driver gets sick statistically. The driver has seen two thousand people a month ago, he's gonna get sick. "These measures," say Ramaphosa's team,"could decrease the risk of infection by up to 80 percent." So far, SDI has fitted out 5,000 school transport taxis and 1,000 commuter taxis. At an estimated cost of about 340,000 dollars, which works out to about 60 dollars per vehicle, much of it provided by donors. It's been quite a journey of discovery for us non-scientists to bring all these people together, with one thing in mind, we need our people to get to work safely and we need to save lives. Pfeiffer Cutsia says the team is also looking at how to scale the model to fit other African countries, which use similar transport systems to move millions of people each day.

Anita Powell VOA news Johannesburg