© Provided by Boston Herald BOSTON, MA - FEBRUARY 3: An Orange Line train is seen at Downtown Crossing on February 3, 2020 in Boston, Massachusetts. (Staff Photo By Angela Rowlings/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald)

Wash your hands with soap for 20 seconds. Maintain 6 feet of separation from others. Don’t lick the T.

An unidentified man reportedly broke the last of those key safety precautions against contracting coronavirus on Friday morning, when the MBTA had to take an Orange Line train out of service because someone apparently was licking the poles inside it.

“Out of an abundance of caution, a southbound train was taken out of service after a passenger reported the alleged incident to a Transit Ambassador at Tufts Medical Center Station,” T spokesman Joe Pesaturo told the Herald on Friday. “Transit Police were notified of the alleged incident.”

The alleged incident was a guy licking the train, Pesaturo confirmed. He said the man was inside the car at the downtown stop, licking the poles, which are normally for people to hold onto as the train moves.

Transit Police searched the area for the man, but the man had split.

T data shows that none of the new Orange Line trains were in service on Friday, which means that the car in question has been shuttling passengers up and down the transit system’s second-busiest line for going on 40 years.

This licking incident comes as the coronavirus spreads rapidly, leading to a widespread focus on personal hygiene and sanitation. The T has implemented a regime of disinfecting all stations every 4 hours, and all trains once a day in an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19, a respiratory disease that’s become a global pandemic.

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The T has sharply reduced service, and ridership has dropped amid the global pandemic, and has started having all buses and Green Line trolleys board through rear doors. Five T employees have tested positive for the virus, including three bus drivers.

The T’s latest precautions came Friday, when it cut out shared trips on the RIDE, its paratransit service, for which it will now require one- to three-day advance booking.

As the Herald has reported, the virus can stick to some surfaces for up to 72 hours, making cleaning equally as important as social distancing.

Common symptoms of this new coronavirus, which surfaced in China a few months ago and has swept the globe since, include fever, coughing and shortness of breath, and the highly contagious disease can lead to life-threatening breathing issues, mainly in older adults and people with pre-existing conditions.

On Friday, there were 477 Bostonians who had tested positive, including two who have died. Statewide, 3,240 people have tested positive and 35 have died. More than 100,000 Americans have the disease.