[Get the latest news and updates on the coronavirus in the New York region.]

The M.T.A. is taking workers’ temperatures to slow the virus.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which oversees New York City’s subways, buses and two commuter railroads, said on Thursday that it had begun deploying medically trained teams to check transit employees’ temperatures when they arrive at work.

The move is meant to help the authority prevent the coronavirus from spreading further among its 74,000-person work force and keep the mass transit system from plunging deeper into a pandemic-fueled crisis it will have to overcome for the city’s economy to rebound.

As of Wednesday, at least 41 transit workers had died of the virus, around 1,500 had tested positive and another 5,600 were self-quarantined after showing signs of being infected.

The resulting crew shortages had caused over 800 subway delays on an already reduced schedule and had forced 40 percent of train trips to be canceled in a single day.

[Coronavirus in New York: A map and the case count.]

Retrieving bodies from homes is a 24-hour operation in N.Y.C.

Nearly 120 morgue workers and members of the military are working around the clock to retrieve the bodies of up to 280 people a day who are dying at home in New York City. Many of them probably died from the coronavirus but were not counted in the official death toll.

The chief medical examiner’s office is overseeing the grisly task, with the help of more than 100 troops from the Army, the National Guard and the Air National Guard, officials said. Many of those involved in the operation have special training in processing human remains.

Fifteen four-person teams are working during each 12-hour shift, driving mostly rented vans, said Aja Worthy-Davis, a spokeswoman for the medical examiner’s office.