Worker disinfects a Moscow metro car
© Kirill Kalinnikov / SputnikA worker disinfects a Moscow metro car.
Despite the coronavirus outbreak, the Moscow government will not shut its most used public transit system, the metro, said the mayor while dismissing the rumors to the contrary as "nonsense and stupidity."

"The metro will work in any situation," Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin told the news channel Rossiya 1. He was responding to online rumors that a total shutdown of the system was imminent to curb the spread of the Covid-19 infection.

Before the pandemic Moscow metro was used daily by some 9 million passengers. Since the Russian capital closed many public venues and advised employers to allow workers do their jobs from home, where possible, the ridership dropped by some 30 percent.

Sobyanin said that even if there was no need to transport people, the underground trains would still have to be operated.

"Technologically the metro was built in a way that the trains need to run regularly and pump the air to keep all the networks in proper condition," he explained. If they were stopped, reopening the system would take six months, he said.

Moscow is working hard to build up resilience in the face of the pandemic, and the mayor was describing some of the measures in the interview. One crucial task it to set up equipment and personnel for makeshift labs, which could be used for mass-testing patients for the infection, should the need arise.

The city is also building a new hospital in an undeveloped part of its territory, which could be used to treat up to 600 patients with the virus. Photos from the construction site amused many Russians this week after they showed motivational posters with slogan like "We'll bury the virus with the crown!" and one featuring the mayor pointing a finger on the construction workers.

The metro, which poses an obvious risk of spreading the disease, has been disinfecting stations and tunnels each night to curb the danger.