UKC

Following Prime Minister Boris Johnson's announcement that indoor leisure facilities in England can reopen from 25 July, climbing walls around the country have been scrambling to ready themselves to reopen for business in the midst of COVID-19. While this is music to the ears of many centres around the country, reopening during this period of social distancing and reduced numbers will not be viable for every business.

I can't help but feel the ABC and BMC would have done better to lobby for extended furlough arrangements and financial support for walls, than to engage in drafting up these dubious reopening guidelines, which they themselves acknowledge only mitigate the risk of infection. I imagine for most walls, running at reduced capacity but with the cost of extra cleaning and ventilation, etc., will be really difficult. Staff and customers are being put at risk for 45% capacity - which I imagine will leave most walls struggling to make a profit. Will that mean cuts to staff - either through redundancy or, given the prevalence of zero-hour contracts in the sector, through reduced working hours? Meanwhile, though there are health and wellbeing benefits to opening, these are likely to be taken up primarily by young men, with older people and women less likely to feel able to use facilities. So, a lot of the community benefit won't really be felt. These measures feel as inadequate as those we've grown used to expecting from government...

I totally agree with C Witter's comments. There is nothing here that will encourage me, an older climber, to rush back indoors. Surely the most important source for transmission of virus in climbing walls is the holds. I see no reason why these can not be included in a regular cleaning routine.

Further there are simple active measures that we as climbers can take to reduce transmission, such as using alcohol based liquid chalk, wearing gloves when belaying, leading climbing using your own rope or in a pair from different ends of the rope, to name but a few.

I think it would be hard to clean the holds, to be honest, because the established ways of cleaning holds involve taking them off the wall. I'm not sure how effective cleaning them whilst they're on the wall would be, but it would involve a lot of labour - perhaps equivalent to re-setting the wall. It makes sense to ask climbers to cleanse their hands instead. But, only in an ideal world will this work. People will ignore it, touch their face, bleed; never mind breathing, sweating, sneezing, coughing, etc. on the holds.

It would make more sense in my mind to keep them closed a bit longer, pay workers furlough and arrange support for the businesses that risk going under despite reopening.

I agree that it would be hard to "deep clean" holds other than removing them from the wall, however, it should be possible to implement a more basic cleaning regime aimed at reducing or preventing the build up of critical levels of virus on holds. This could involve simply spraying holds with a mild alcohol based disinfectant solution or similar. I'd be quite happy to spray the holds I used on a route on the way down.

Nah you are over thinking it, if you feel vulnerable stay at home and shield yourself, the rest of us will use a bit of  hand sanitiser and get on with our lives.

Transmission risk via surfaces does not seem to be that high. The real risk is from close proximity to an infected person, breathing, coughs etc. The virus does not last long on a surface and it requires large quantities of it to be present. Which is not to say that there is no risk, just that the risk appears to be much lower than first thought. I feel that we, as a population, are getting overly concerned with the dangers of fomites and our energies would be better directed at ensuring effective social distancing and other measures that limit airborne transmission.

There is obviously a risk involved in going to the wall and we will all have to make individual choices. I haven't yet made mine, I want to see how the situation looks at my local walls via photographs after they open. It seems some are introducing additional practices over those ABC recommendations. Eg in the Hangar liquid chalk will now be mandatory and there are one way systems in place throughout.

The problem with your argument about lobbying for extended furlough is (1) the government has decided that leisure facilities of this type can now reopen and has announced furlough will end entirely in October, so it's fanciful, (2) there really is no fixed timescale on how long this might last and therefore we can't afford to make our actions dependent on a vaccine or drugs bringing an end to the concern; we need to find ways to live our lives with the risk present, and manage it to acceptable levels. Will that make it harder for some walls to make a profit? Yes. I'm sure some will close.  But an indefinite enforced closure would be worse even with the furlough scheme in place; there are still costs for rent, maintenance etc and the patience with which many wall members have voluntarily continued to pay their fees will obviously not last forever.

This paper backs up what you say https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/laninf/PIIS1473-3099(20)30561-2.pdf

I think in essence that any business that can't reopen in the next few months is dead, and will need to close down, liquidate and be refounded from scratch at a later stage once the virus is either gone or has mutated into something a bit less dangerous.  I think this is very likely true of nightclubs (a dying business anyway) and cruises and possibly some airlines, but if we can avoid it being true of climbing walls I think that would be good.

The transmission path is face-to-hand-to-hold-to-hand-to-face.  When I get back to the wall for some circuit board training I'd be happy to wear a mask to break the last link in the chain

I wouldn't be willing to exercise with a mask on; it constrains my breathing too much.  I can wear one at rest or when walking but not when exerting myself.  This being a rule would mean me unable to climb at a wall (or use a gym or similar).

Yeah, thats one of my sources, that and a partner who works on covid research at phe.

Another remedy would be lace your chalk bag with chilli powder to help you resist temptation to touch your face

Liquid chalk probably mitigates the risk to the extent I'm happy with it, it's like sanitising your hands each time you climb.  If you do that as well, the risk is low enough for me.

These are designed to be worn during exercise https://www.uynsports.com/en_gb/masks/

We will be stocking them

If you have any other good papers feel free to send them to me, email is graeme @ climbingworks.com but without the spaces.

Interested in how they can justify holds as being infrastructure and therefore not requiring regular cleaning.  Surely, the infrastructure is the permanent structure of the wall itself and it's embedded T-Nuts and Bolts, etc.
Holds, Lower Offs and Quickdraws, etc. are items that are readily changed to suit the needs of the customer and therefore should be classed as equipment as the customer has no choice but touching it.

It isn't actually a paper...its an opinion piece in the Lancet and isn't peer reviewed and by his own admission is contrary to the peer reviewed papers. I'm not disagreeing or agreeing just I wouldn't rely upon opinions no matter how credible they may seem...and I certainly would not cite them in risk assessments over peer reviewed literature. With over 6 months of this so far and it have such such global impacts it amazes me how wooly the the science seems at times.

It's not going to be the holds. As mentioned above the risk is from having people congregating in an indoor space. 

All good points. But, it's easier to negotiate with the government than with the coronavirus. Either way, these measures are not going to be pretty - for customers (especially anyone who gets sick), but mostly for staff and for wall owners. Working in an even more risky environment to scratch a living on reduced hours - not appealing.

https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-phase-3-staying-safe...

Based on the above guidance I would have thought Scottish climbing walls would mandate face coverings.

All sounds good until this bit:
In my opinion, the chance of transmission through inanimate surfaces is very small, and only in instances where an infected person coughs or sneezes on the surface, and someone else touches that surface soon after the cough or sneeze (within 1–2 h). 

Beat me to it! All that is published in a journal is not equal, nor actually evidence. A cautious approach needs to be employed in any interpretations for guideline development.

Yes.  Surely the obvious answer is to keep your hands sanitised, say before and after each climb.

i don't see why this is all debated so much.

if you want to go, then go.

if you think its a risk then don't go.

if they make you wear masks and you want to mard over that, then you have a choice of not going.

I will go if its raining and I want a climb,if not I will climb outdoors. 

I guess the counter argument to that is that it's not only your risk that you may be increasing by going. If the precautions do not mitigate the spread sufficiently at a climbing wall, then you could be fine but spread it to (say) an immune suppressed person who then dies, who otherwise wouldn't have.

Basically the same argument as why vaccines should be compulsory (unless medically not allowed) - without this the people not taking the vaccines voluntarily are effectively killing the people that would take the vaccine but can't because of a medical reason. 

I hope that the ABC guidelines are not based in part on a non-peer reviewed opinion letter. That would be a pretty poor show.

BTW - I just read the guidelines. Couple of comments:

- Good that it's been signed off by a leading virologist, bad that they are not named. There are many types of virologist I imagine, and i'd expect that a) they'd put their name to it (as if collaborating on a paper) and b) without knowing their name, there is little assurance they are the correct type (at a guess a public health would be what you want rather than a lab researcher) 

- The guidelines end rather abruptly - they state "The procedures below have been prepared by the ABC specifically for UK Climbing Walls. They are based on solid research and government guidelines and requirements. They should be read in conjunction with ‘ABC Guidelines’ submitted to the government through UK Active. There are 8 sections to these procedures:" However the procedures themselves (and whats mandatory vs recommended) are not provided - have i just missed a link or are these being kept secret (which seems an odd choice).

I think it is a shame that UKC didn't challenge / address these points in their article, it does read a bit like a press release.

I was just about to make exactly this point. Glad I read your post first. Is anyone (Graeme perhaps) able to answer it? I thought perhaps that it was just a typo "The procedures below..." actually meaning "The procedures above..." Easy to miss if page 8 had originally been page 1 but then cut and pasted to the end. But then the list of headings are not the same, and the reference to what's mandatory vs recommended is confusing. So it does suggest that ABC have produced more detail for their members that's not linked here and not publicly available.

I've absolutely no problem with that. ABC members are entitled to a service in return for their membership. But it would be good to know. I shall be passing these guidelines to our local school-based community sports centre which has a small climbing wall predominantly used (and looked after - we do the re-routing) by our mountaineering club. The centre is slowly re-opening, on a sport-by-sport basis, once they have guidelines to follow from the national bodies for each sport.

Martin

Guidelines are very general. I don't mind trying a mask but have a feeling it isn't going to be suitable. I note that there have been 3 cases of Covid-19 transmission occurring in Singapore, reported in March. All are related. 2 climbing gyms involved. Be interesting to know more.

Why have ewanjp and myself got dislikes for asking what I thought was a perfectly reasonable question? Am I missing something here?

Martin

It's interesting that in the 'Wearing of Masks in Shops' thread the consensus seems to be "Of course you should, why the hell wouldn't you?".
Whereas, in this one and other Wall threads it seems to be "Wear a mask at the wall? Don't be so ridiculous...".  😷🧗‍♂️

I assume because people are thinking we're being kill joys for asking these questions. I see a lot of posts on social media (often relating to masks) where people are saying 'it's a risk i'm willing to take' or 'we can't live in cotton wool forever' or variations on that theme. Even when pointed out that from a public health point of view the risk is potentially not to them, but to someone else (e.g. a young healthy man goes to a venue, catches it due to inadequate measures being in place, then gives it to an immune suppressed person who has to leave the house to do something critical like go shopping), people seem to wilfully ignore this point.

To be clear, I want climbing walls to reopen, but I want it to be guided by science. The press release from ABC about chalk and the virus seems hopeful, although it obviously needs to be peer reviewed. As a layperson (albeit it with a certain amount of scientific background from degree & previous jobs), i'm struggling a bit with the claim that climbing holds are 'infrastructure' and thus don't need to be cleaned. I get that they are very hard to clean, but this doesn't equate to them not needing to be cleaned.

On the ABC climbing guidelines, to an extent I can understand them wanting to limit their detailed guidance to their paying members. However for this specific situation, I would hope they would allow the public to see them as well for the sake of the public good - otherwise how will the public be able to gauge whether their local wall is following the mandatory and recommended sections. I imagine that a lot of walls may struggle with the 9sqm requirement for example.

I saw that and almost burst out laughing.  They are very clearly pieces of equipment analogous to say a resistance machine at a gym, and that they are claiming this is absolutely laughable.  I'm in favour of reopening, but seriously?

Yes, that seems obviously a fudge to get round the cleaning problem. They should clearly have the same status as gym equipment which people handle.

Must admit I'm not sure why wearing a mask would make things any more difficult climbing. It doesnt affect your Sp02, it weighs 1/10th of a chalk bag, and (once worn a little while) is unobtrusive.  The 'mandatory or not bit' is part of the consistent mixed messaging the gov have chucked out...I would not be surprised if there is a U-Turn mandating masks at walls (esp. if gyms want to stay open through the winter).

One can read the thread on MP where they are reporting on the walls which opened and closed again due to infection.

There was a great episode on the Science of sport podcast regarding how much wearing a mask affects athletic performance. It was focused on long distance runners and cyclists where the conclusion was it makes very little difference, although the perceived difficulty does increase.

https://play.acast.com/s/realscienceofsport/whythewhosadviceonexercisingand...

In climbing, where aerobic performance is a very minor aspect, the impact on performance should be close to zero except for very rare cases due to medical conditions.

I tested how much impact mask wearing has on my climbing during some board sessions at home. My conclusion was similar to the above: things felt a bit harder but I had some of my best sessions. It had no noticeable impact on my performance when limit bouldering or training anaerobic capacity. The type of training where I could see it might have the biggest effect would be hard aerobic power sessions. But the impact would still be low and I think it would be selfish to be training those at the wall right now anyway.