ARTICLE: The COVID-19 Pandemic and its Impact on Mountain Sports - A Study

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Kirsten Steimel on the Cosmiques Arete in July.

This summer, British climbers Roger Everett and Simon Richardson were part of a team of academics and outdoor enthusiasts who worked on a paper about the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on mountain sports, which has now been submitted to a scientific journal for publication. As far as the team are aware, this is the only academic paper addressing this topic.

The paper reviews information collected from the UK, Europe and North America. The key conclusion is that there is no evidence of anyone becoming infected with SARS-CoV-2 during outdoor mountain sports, suggesting that the SARS- CoV-2 infection risk is low while pursuing these activities. The paper summarises measures that can be adopted to reduce the risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection during mountain sports and associated activities, and makes a recommendation on how to return to mountain sport after a SARS-CoV-2 infection. Simon and Roger have summarised their findings below.



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 Si Witcher 28 Oct 2020
In reply to UKC/UKH Articles:

Nice little article that. A more ambitious study would involve testing a large sample of outdoor mountain sports participants on a daily basis for a period of 2-3 weeks, with different groups using different types of accommodation (shared vs private). Since a significant proportion of infections are thought to be asymptomatic, the authors naturally wouldn't find evidence of these infections unless they looked for it (via intensive testing).

 Ssshhh 28 Oct 2020
In reply to UKC/UKH Articles:

I'm glad the authors have distilled what limited evidence is available and made some "common-sense" recommendations. Whether these recommendations have any strong evidence to support them is another matter. One has to start somewhere!

Perhaps the authors' main aim is to help representative bodies, to avoid those orgs making ill-informed recommendations which go beyond local/national guidance.

Post edited at 11:54
 jimtitt 28 Oct 2020
In reply to UKC/UKH Articles:

I don't think anyone ever claimed mountain sports as such were a potential source on infection, certainly we know that associated with mountain sports  ARE activities which can lead to infection, Ishgl springs to mind. And in Germany the curtailment was because mountain rescue cover was no longer provided.


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