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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