MACS Monthly Newsletter - 2020 - JUN1

Total Vehicle Climate and Thermal ManagementTM

June 2020

By Steve Schaeber, MACS Technical Editor

Auto Repair & the COVID-19 Pandemic
navirus: the name of the virus, and the name of the disease.
The official name of the virus is "SARS-CoV-2" (severe
acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2), which was officially named by the ICTV (the International Committee on
Taxonomy of Viruses) on February 11, 2020 (Figure 1). It re-

Two different names

Based on what is currently known about the novel (new)
coronavirus, it can be spread from person-to-person most

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the accuracy of the content of MACS Service Reports. MACS, however, will
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US CDC

Automotive repair is considered an "essential activity"
in many parts of the country, which means that most service shops can stay open during the Coronavirus Pandemic.
Still, these businesses are feeling the impact of COVID-19.
Some shops have seen a steep decline in revenues while others have felt only a modest interruption to their business.
It seems none, however, will get through this period unscathed.
During the first few weeks of mitigation, many people
thought that the shutdown would only last a few days to
maybe a week or so. During that time, it seemed that customers were eager to drop their vehicles off to take care of
those services they had been putting off for a while. After all,
customers are always too busy to take care of things like this,
so with a few unplanned days at home, it was the optimal
time to get things done.
But when it became apparent that the shutdown would
last longer, people stopped coming in for those smaller services like oil changes, tire rotations, inspections and the like,
and instead opted to just stay home. Some due to work-athome situations with their employers (which means they
don't need to use their cars to commute back and forth to
work) and others due to furlough or unemployment. It was
at this point that shops began to see a drop off in work volume, although the work they are seeing now is more of the
required variety, with actual needed repairs getting done.
Steering and suspension, tire replacement, and brakes and
chassis service, are not the kind of work that can be put off.
So at least that kind of work is still coming in the door.
Along with other essential workers, shop owners and
technicians are also on the front lines in this Coronavirus
Pandemic. They are meeting with the public, directly touching their car keys, and getting into their personal space. As
such, the need to protect customers and technicians, combined with the lack of guidance from any federal or state
agency on how to do so, has led some shops to come up with
creative protective methods on their own.

Figure 1: This illustration of the novel Coronavirus (so
well-known now that's been used in news broadcasts for
weeks) reveals ultrastructural morphology exhibited by
coronaviruses. Note the spikes that adorn the outer surface
of the virus, which impart the look of a corona surrounding
the virion, when viewed through an electron microscope.
The virus was identified as the cause of an outbreak of respiratory illness first detected in Wuhan, China in 2019,
and has been named "coronavirus disease 2019", or "COVID-19" for short.
ceived this name because it is genetically related to the coronavirus that was responsible for the SARS outbreak back in
2003. Even though they are related, they are still different.
At the same time, the WHO (World Health Organization)
announced "COVID-19" as the official name of the disease.
In other words, the coronavirus named "SARS-CoV-2"
causes the disease named "COVID-19" in people.

How does SARS-CoV-2 spread?

First, two technical details we should explain about Coro-

June 2020

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MACS Monthly Newsletter - 2020

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