This morning’s Post expands on yesterday’s Metro press release, which admitted that a MetroAccess driver tested positive for tuberculosis this fall. The driver in question was removed from his role in mid-October, but the more pressing concern is the 762 riders that could possibly have caught the airborne infection, which propitiously was not a more advanced, drug-resistant strain of the disease. Those who have tuberculosis can pass the infection by simply being in close contact with others — the infection spreads through the mouth by coughing and sneezing — but it can also be spread simply by speaking. The Post’s report notes that local health departments believe that about 100 people have a “serious” risk of being infected.

That figure gains even more traction when you notice that, based on the most recent data, there were about 500 active cases of tuberculosis in the entirety of Virginia and Maryland combined.

There is some heat coming down on Metro for the considerable delay between the driver’s positive test and the written warning to those who may have been at risk, especially since for those involved — namely elderly riders — tuberculosis could be a devastating illness, leading to respiratory failure and death. For instance: treated TB has about a 5 percent fatality rate, whereas untreated infections will kill two of every three. There’s also the issue that everyone who may have rode Metro in close proximity to those at a “serious” risk of infection are only hearing about this in December, more than two months after the incident occurred.

The situation unfortunately casts a serious doubt as to Metro’s ability to deal with a public health scare. Based on this story, do any of you have confidence in WMATA to deal with even a small-scale health problem?