On Nov. 15, Gov. Jay Inslee announced a four-week statewide set of restrictions in response to the increased rate of the COVID-19 infections in Washington and across the country. King County also has seen an increase in cases, with south King County disproportionately impacted.

Since the beginning of the pandemic and especially during this time, the safety of Metro’s employees, customers, and community members remains our highest priority. Working with public health guidance, we have made system-wide enhancements, and have continuously improved and expanded upon them. To mention a few, we disinfect daily, require masks, maintain passenger limits, and encourage physical distancing. More recently, we added safety partitions between the driver and passengers, and are continuing to add onboard mask dispensers to a growing number of routes.

Metro and our labor partners work in close coordination to deliver safe, sustainable, and equitable transit to our region. We’re in continuous communication with ATU 587 and provide information that includes sharing the number of reported positive COVID-19 cases. It is important to note that these numbers may not reflect every case experienced by a Metro employee and that these numbers also include employees who are telecommuting.

  • Total number of cases reported since March 2020: 61
  • Total number of cases reported in last 30 days (from Oct. 23, 2020 to Nov. 21, 2020): 21
  • This last number reflects a rate of about 0.4% of our Metro workforce over the past 30 days.

While we unfortunately expect spikes in regional rates to be reflected in our workforce, we continue to take strict measures to prevent workplace transmission. Our recent contact tracing has not identified any significant spread of COVID-19 or likely infections resulting from a workplace exposure.

As Metro has shared previously, we do not publicly disclose individual cases or locations to protect the privacy of employees, to maintain a safe environment for other employees to share their status and/or seek medical care, and to avoid other locations wrongly being seen as being without risk.

Again, with increasing rates of infection in our community, we expect to see these numbers increase in the coming days and are encouraging our employees—and everyone—to limit contacts during this holiday season and to take protective measures to reduce risk.

Monthly reported totals:

  • Before more detailed reporting (March 2020 through mid-July 2020): 23
  • July 2020: 5
  • Aug. 2020: 3
  • Sept. 2020: 4
  • Oct. 2020: 6
  • Nov. 2020 (Nov. 1, 2020 through Nov. 21, 2020): 20
  • Total: 61

Relevant resources: