UKC

If you're anything like me you're very much missing your local climbing wall. The virus cases and fatalities are dropping consistently each day and we've dropped to a lower alert level. While gyms are likely to re-open early next month, showing that we are eager to get back to them certainly can't hurt and may speed the process up.

Sign the petition if so inclined.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/307146

Er no.  Around 500 people died in the UK in the last three days.  Way too soon.

OMFG tragedy. Until there's an effective vaccine we can't enjoy ourselves again.

That may be never...

I won't use my wall until the winter again now, anyway.

Fortunate timing in a morbid sort of way!

I can't imagine missing the wall that much whist I have rock climbing to keep me busy, but each to their own...

Yes, do think people dying is a tragedy.  Don’t you?

We can enjoy ourselves in the meantime - in many ways - but not in all of the ways be could before lockdown started.  Not just yet.

OMFG my personal enjoyment is worth the lives of people I don't know,  why should I temporarily curtail my enjoyment. 

Speed the process up? Unlikely ...I doubt they even bother looking

I’m loving that all the climbing walls are closed at the moment. None of my friends have an excuse to climb indoors at the slightest trickle o rain. Way better.

Shouldn't this process be based on the virus, rather than what people want?

Lots of us want to climb indoors again but I don't think a petition like this gives the right impression of the climbing community to policymakers. I also will personally be quite nervous about going back to start with and if I think the local wall is opening too early or without enough precautions it would put me off.

I totally share any sentiments around wanting to support the walls to keep open as a business - in fact I have carried on paying my monthly membership throughout - but it's better to be patient and open when it's the right thing to do, not be too pushy.

There is also lots of climbing to be done outside at the moment. 

Unlikely climbing walls will be considered separately, petition or no.  They're just indoor sports venues like gyms etc and will likely reopen at the same sort of time, whenever that is.

Clearly you have it not been following the response so far...

Climbing walls should pretty much be the last thing to reopen. I can't think of much else where the risk from touching surfaces is so high.

You can wipe down a barbell and bench before use, you can't wipe down an indoor problem or route.

Surly an indoor climbing walls isn't a necessity and at this time we should do what ever we can to lower the risk of contact and spre8of this virus. 

I want to support my local wall but more importantly want everyone to stay safe and well. 

Just because shops are opening up and people feel the need to use these doesn't mean we all have to do the same. 

It's summer lets get outside and enjoy it.

That's an admirable example. If people feel strongly that they want to support their local wall through this crisis, and they must be in desperate financial straits, then continuing to pay your subs is an unselfish act as opposed to winging selfishly like the OP to try and get them re`opened too soon and risk more lives. As has been pointed out, missing out on training is an inconvenience for a few months, whereas if people die as a result of your suggested lobbying, it's forever.

Why not just climb outside?  

Can you show me documented proof of a single case of the virus being spread through contact transmission?

The circumstantial evidence is overwhelming.

How else do you imagine it spreads?

Primarily through Vector transmission as opposed to Fomite.
Otherwise we'd be dropping like flies after handling objects in the supermarket, etc. and that is why social distancing is paramount in stopping it spreading.

What circumstantial evidence?

It spreads through airbourne droplet transmission.

Which is a result of close contact with other people, which you will encounter in a gym where social distancing is difficult to achieve?

You've just argued against yourself...

No, GA asked for evidence of a single transmission from contact transmission. Contact with others is inevitable as you point out.

I'm not sure what vectors you are talking about?

The contact transmission as referenced by Graeme is fomite.
What you are talking about is vector.

Maybe you are misunderstanding what contact transmission is (or isn't), it is about touching a surface that may have been infected by droplets ie someone sneezing on a hold and then someone else use the hold and somehow getting infected. There is not a single case in the whole world of someone getting the virus by touching something. Not a single case that the German health authorities have heard about nor the American CDC.

Infection is by breathing in infected water droplets in the air. So yes social distancing and the use of face coverings is the key.

Apologies, got mixed up and incorrectly used vector.
By vector, I meant direct transmission by droplets as opposed to secondary from surfaces, etc.

He didn't specify that in his post. He just said "contact". I now understand that he meant fomite

Thanks. Yes, I did misunderstand you

No problem, in quite a few of the documents that I see 'contact transmission' is used to mean touching surfaces.

BTW the CDC says "it may be possible" https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/how-covid-sp... which I take to mean that they dare not rule it out but haven't seen any evidence yet!

Link/reference please? Your first sentence above seems fairly incredible and is the sort of quote one would expect to see from Trump. 

The main two contact paths that all the scientists warned of from the beginning were respiratory droplets and contact with infected surfaces. If one is to be discounted then concrete proof is required that transmission doesn't occur in that way. Is that available? Anecdotal evidence that no-one has been definitely recorded to have received the virus this way seems extremely weak, given that the vast majority of people have little idea how they got it. Even once you know the person, there is no way of knowing whether it's because they breathed too close to you or whether you touched something they had touched.

Have you read about the early cases in the church in Singapore z which were what made the authorities there realise how serious it was? A Chinese couple who had just travelled from Wuhan and were pre symptomatic apparently infected other people who entered the church and sat in the same seats as the Chinese couple after they had left (ie, they were never even in the church at the same time, but they determined the contact via seats using cctv).

Ok thanks for clarifying.

There was definitely a case I read about where it was spread from someone who had it to someone who sat in the same row of seats later on.  

It was a church but I can't remember the details sorry. 

That's the one, Singapore.  

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52840763

The reason we don't have more of these is not because it doesn't happen, but because we are not contact tracing properly let alone anywhere near as thoroughly as in Singapore.  

It could be that many people caught it this way here, we just don't know.  No work has been done here on where and how people caught it.

Thanks for the link, I couldn't remember where I had read about it

What's the vector, Victor?

The BBC article is a bit sensational, it was also covered in the Lancet:

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30528-6/...

"Based on closed-circuit camera findings, C5 occupied the same seat as did cases C1 and C2 at the prayer meeting after the morning service, but they did not recall meeting each other."

I don't think it's certain how the disease was transmitted.

Can you show me documented proof that it doesn't?

Even if it is only spread through aerosol, how far do you imagine someone at the top of a route coughing, could spread the virus throughout a climbing wall?

The indoor wall of our local Club Alpin Francais re-opened last week. It's not big as walls go - about 20 fixed ropes. They have set a max of 10 persons (climbers) in the hall at one time, ie. 5 in action, 5 belaying.

Doesn't sound like much fun , and there will be procedures for cleaning hands/holds etc. There are normally a few 'cocks' strutting around telling you how to belay so - give them the chance to remind you how close u r to the next man - could get intolerable :o I'm out  

You can't prove a negative dude.  Try to keep up.

On the contrary this would be easy to prove or disprove through experiment. Take a relevant surface, deposit a sensible dose of virus, have someone touch the surface a suitable time later, test whether they have active virus on their hand (and perhaps whether or not it is a significant proportion of the virus that was deposited or only a very small amount). Then repeat many times and see what the results are statistically.

You could skip the last step with a person and just test the surface if you thought it was too risky for the participants. That would leave a bit more uncertainty about whether people would pick it up though. We also know that it has already been done, since experiments were reported months ago that showed the virus persisted on different surfaces for different lengths of time.

I suspect the reason this hasn't been done and/or published is because the hypothesis that transmission can't occur that way is false. If there was a realistic chance it was true, Govt's would have been trying to prove it so they could relax some measures I'd have thought.

They were at different services at different times and the couple who spread the infection left the church immediately after the service.  The CCTV was checked too.  If they had crossed paths the CCTV would have shown it.  

If 2 people with the infection sit in the same place for the length of a service then there will be a fair amount of the virus in the area where they sat.  The virus survives on surfaces for quite some time, days rather than hours.  

Funny that - however many times the gov changes it's tune on 'real science', however untrstworthy they are poularly declared and derided right here on UKC - when it comes to the psuedo-science of the pandemic, there's always a gov supporter. Think about it .

This topic comes up recurrently. Contact is not a major problem - trust the germans !

https://www.businessinsider.fr/us/death-rate-german-laboratory-city-5x-less...

That was one study of a small place over 2 months ago. The quotes use words like 'most' and when the study was actually published in early May (you can google it) this topic does not appear to be mentioned at all, it is all about the number of infections. Remember this study was done weeks after most infections in the area so it can only make an educated guess at method of transmission from where people got infected (eg at home or in the supermarket, etc).

If anything concrete comes out on this topic it will be great news but that study definitely isn't!

I haven't seen any of the CCTV footage, how much of the church was covered by cameras? It's also possible they came into contact outside the church near the entrance, was this also ruled out by CCTV?

They were in the same seats so surface contact is a possibility, but I wouldn't draw a definite conclusion. The Lancet article notes recall bias affected the evidence gathered and there may have been other contact.

Aha 'real' science has changed again - well spotted !

The Lancet was discredited recently - who can you trust ? Especially as confirmed they have 'a cosy relationship with the pharmaceutical indistry'

Cross contamination has been proven for years. That's why you don't chop your salad on the same board as your raw chicken. Viruses and bacteria can survive. It's clearly rocket science for some though. 

Do you wash your hands after going to the toilet? 

I believe we should turn that one round 180°.  I'm not a virologist, so I'm going to go with the precautionary principle here.

The WHO, and governments and the world are advising us that gloves, hand washing etc. are important steps in controlling the spread of the virus. If the experts say we can get it from touching things then we should act as though they are correct until such time as we have very strong evidence that they are wrong.

Otherwise we end up in the same ridiculous position that we were in with face coverings - the WHO advised we should wear them, the government trotted out the line that there was no evidence they would make a difference, so told us not to wear them. Then they found the evidence and are now telling us to wear them (on public transport at least). How many lives could have been saved had we been wearing them while we waited for the proof?

If you have evidence that the established medical advice is wrong, please provide it.

Agreed. 

Adopting a heathy diet to boost immune system and good hand hygeine are easy and fairly non desruptive ways society can adapt their habits. They may have negligible benefits, or they could be lifesaving but what are the negatives?

I wish I could remember where I read about it before.  It wasn't the BBC or the Lancet.  

I could be remembering wrong but I was strongly under the impression that the couple in question infected 3 people at the church, 2 at the same service in the morning and the one that was more difficult to understand had not crossed paths at any point.  It turned out the only common place was attending the same church, but a different service several hours later in the afternoon. (Hence checking if they had attended lunch) This seemed to be the only possible method of infection which is why they checked the CCTV and found they were sat in the same place.  

This doesn't disagree with anything in the Lancet, just more detail.  

I don't see anything surprising in this, it's why we have been told to handwash so much and not touch things other people have touched.  

Discredited by who and for whom?

I remember once when I had crabs.... I managed to spread them liberally around most of the women in our village until I got rid of them with blue unction in my pubes and sanitising my undies in the pressure cooker. But then they came back to me, in a second wave.

search on lancet+chloroquine+surgisphere - over an article which was clearly paid-to-publish; peer reviews did not take place, and only the lead man had access to the data

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/03/covid-19-surgisphere-who-worl... 

That article doesn't support that it was paid to publish or that it wasn't peer-reviewed and it certainly falls a long way short of saying it leaves the Lancet discredited. Sounds like a large part of the study being in dispute is *because* the Lancet published it, which sounds a lot like a system working, with questions being raised about the quality of peer-review under time-pressured circumstances.

Are you sure? there's no evidence Alzheimer's can be passed on through sex.

Interestingly the signatures have doubled from around 40k to high 90k in less than a day following the announcement that pubs, restaurants and hairdressers are allowed to re-open.

Many see this as illogical I suppose.

however many people sign a petition, it doesn't make it any safer.

No, the dropping infection rates, low transmission rates and people taking responsibility for their own safety and actions does- IMO.

I signed it. Personally I want to go climbing indoors at times. Do not see why pubs and restaurants can open but not gyms. Lunacy. 

How is it possible that 6 months into this pandemic we''re still having a conversation as to weather the virus spreads through surface contact, this is massively important and seemingly would be very very easy to verify.  Theoretically it's obvious that covid could spread by surface contact but the fact that everyone knows about the same single case in Singapore suggests that it is actually extremely rare.   Even if we don't start a new study we already have data from 100s of thousands of contact tracing cases so we should be able to have a good estimate as to what % of people have picked up the virus without going near somebody who was infected.  If it turns out to be a tiny fraction or 0% of cases known to be spread through surface contact this could affect how we reopen business, which could be worth billions of dollars.

Even if it is proven that the 2 people in singapore never came into contact with each other this definitely does not prove infection through surface contact, the other option is that they became infected via somebody else altogether, maybe an asymptomatic who was never identified by the contact tracers.

What surface spread got to do with it, for a climbing wall? What if someone asymptomatic coughs a load of virus into the air from the top of a route, no one has to touch anything, simply breathe in the shower of virus reigning down on people.

But you're right, we still don't know if it can be picked up from surfaces, but not knowing doesn't make it safe.

Do you think climbing walls are the only indoor environment where someone could be situated above others and cough? Do you think that people with coughs will be flocking to gyms or allowed to enter? Realistically when is the last time you encountered someone projectile coughing facing away from the wall at the top of a route? 

If your of the opinion that shared indoor spaces are unsafe to return to, say that. Don't single out climbing walls as if they are specifically hazardous places.

Also isn't asymptomatic coughing a bit of an oxymoron? I get people can still clear their throats but by definition if your hacking up your lungs you aren't asymptomatic are you? Even if your stupid enough to go to a gym with a cough at this time do you think you'll be allowed in?

A lot of this fear feels very hypothetical. Are gyms more spacious than pubs and restaurants, in general? Can sober people maintain distance and follow rules better than inebriated people in a pub? Aren't you more likely to contract the virus from shared surfaces eg. plates/cutlery/glasses/mugs in a pub or restaurant than any surface in a gym? (surfaces directly touching mouth!).

No but it's much more prevelant in climbing walls, by their very nature.

I have no idea, it only takes one cough though, and that could be for all sorts of reason if your asympotmatic, dust, pollen chalk.

You can spread the virus by simply talking, shouting gives a higher spread, coughing and sneezing even more!

Why not if they are, shouldn't every indoor space have it's own assessment.

See above, you seem to think if your asymptomatic you don't cough, that you need to have loads of people coughing around you to spread the disease, or that you need to be coughed at constantly. No of these are true.

A lot of confidence is hypothetical.

Who knows?

You seem to be basing your "science" on your desire rather than any facts, you examples and excuses are all formed to support your argument, which don't hold up to any sort of rigorous thinking.

I'd love to get back climbing at our wall, the wall it's self doesn't think it's safe, it has nothing to do with what the government is saying, the owner doesn't think they could make it safe.

https://msphere.asm.org/content/5/3/e00442-20

Surfaces are extensively contaminated and quite likely form a more effective transmission route than transmission purely via air

I think it's clear the actual, specific level of risk is unknown. As demonstrated by your opposing views, neither of which is evidenced, they're both just logical conclusions drawn from a poor evidence base. (i.e. what does 1 in 1000 people carrying the infection in the community as a national average tell you about the risk in climbing walls? Nothing).

If we accept that the specific level of risk is not known and cannot be known, then it's a matter of judgement. What's an "acceptable" level of risk? We each make these value judgements all the time, in our daily behaviours (during this pandemic), the speed we choose to drive on country roads and more relevantly, the types of routes we climb outdoors. 

The question then becomes ideological. How much of a role should government play in our lives and in deeming what risk is acceptable for us? 

I would personally argue that opening certain environments and not others seems an arbitrary and unjustified intrusion in personal life. As soon as pubs are open there can no longer be the argument that this is a desperate emergency whereby very heavy intervention is completely necessary.

Surely, better for government to provide the financial support necessary to give people free choice (i.e. allow businesses to stay closed, and employees to not work should they so choose), and then allow people to make their own decisions. As with the majority of risks we take, our actions will likely affect others, and the intrusion on freedom should be proportionate to the harm done.

And to clarify - I have no interest in climbing gyms opening. I also have no interest in pubs or restaurants opening. But that's not the point.

We're operating in a society where people are hostage to the ideological views and/or arbitrary decisions of the Government, meaning those who don't want to work in a pub are forced to (or face destitution), and those who want to work in a climbing wall are not allowed. I think a more relevant demonstration of this is that hairdressers are allowed to open, but beauty salons are not. My personal view is that it's an overreach of government's role.

And to finish off the rant - we are living through a time where it is illegal to stay at a friends house (except in extremely restricted conditions whereby one of you lives alone, and you may pair with one other household at the exclusion of all others, soon to be ever so slightly relaxed), yet we're allowed to go to the pub or restaurant 7 times a week, and stay in campsites.

Personally I would like our local swimming pool to re-open at least on the basis that swimming lessons can resume. Our 4 year old son has been doing lessons since a young age and this is firmly with the mindset that if/when he falls into a lake or river at some point during his early life he is able to swim back to safety. At the moment he is learning but was still only at the stage of swimming a short distance.

Accidents (including drowning) is the greatest cause of death for children, almost no children have died from CV. 

The risk applies to the whole community. Individual liberty or freedom of action rightly takes a prominent place in a modern democratic society and should be cherished. We also need to recognise that it does and has always come at the expense of other freedoms.

The right to health, the right to family life, the right to life itself. Coronavirus presents a uniquely dangerous challenge to the integrity of all of those freedoms and others, and restricting individual liberty of action to protect them must be seen as the balancing act that it is.

None of this is easy, we are learning about the virus as we go, evidence is being produced on the fly because we have no other choice. Policies change as knowledge changes and both are contested. But what is increasingly uncontested is the huge danger presented by coronavirus to the integrity of society as a whole. That includes the economy, and your ability to pursue non-essential leisure activities.

Going on current understandings of case fatility rates, if coronavirus were left to spread through the population unchecked, by the time we reach herd immunity we'd be looking at getting on for 600,000 deaths in the UK, the effective destruction of the health service and untold damage to the economy that would make lockdown look like child's play. This would far exceed the death toll we suffered in World War 2, and we put up with far greater restrictions on individual liberty for much longer period to get through that.

If it isn't the government's job to prevent that kind of disaster, why bother having one at all?

I think that drowning are likely to go up in teenagers and adults too. Every year you get some people who decide to swim in unsafe places like quarries. This year I have seen far more.  

I see no reason not to open outdoor pools at least.  No facilities, change under a towel.  Restricted numbers.  

In agreement with the principle - but coronavirus is not uniquely dangerous. The majority of trauma and disease (incl. non-communicable) is as a direct result of people exercising freedoms that impact themselves and others. 

Not to mention that 51% of severe Covid-19 cases in the UK can be directly attributed to unhealthy lifestyle and behaviours - i.e. exercise of freedoms that could be stopped should the Government choose. (Based on a study with a cohort of 380,000 people - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S088915912030996X?via%3Di...)

The 600,000 (which I thought was 500,000 - note the difference being over double the actual death rate) was based on "worst-case scenario modelling". It's also worth noting that this same modelling said the "herd immunity" plan would result in 250,000 deaths. Importantly, this "scenario modelling" isn't actually based on evidence. It's stacking assumptions in to the machine and seeing what happens, which is helpful, but not when dished out as a headline. The actual death rate was completely unknown in March when this modelling was produced and remains so. Infection rates were guessed (being over R=5 to achieve the 500k). This same modelling said lockdown, introduced when it was, on the 23 March, would result in 5,700 deaths. They were wrong. No doubt death rates would have been higher without restrictions on freedom, but the point here is that throwing out the headline of modelling that demonstrably is not helpful adds to noise and not information. It's better simply accept more freedom = more death and recognise that we can't attach numbers to that than attempt to show we know more than we do.

I'm completely in agreement government has a role to play here. Not least building more hospital capacity (which was one of the key assumptions that led to such large death rates) and sourcing PPE in a coordinated way that could never be achieved by lots of individual organisations. They also have a role in restricting many freedoms in a proportionate way. For example gatherings of hundreds and thousands of people, from all corners of the UK are clearly very high risk and should be restricted. 

But trying to justify opening pubs and restaurants while mandating who is in your home and not allowing other leisure businesses to open is not on the same level of proportionality.

So modelling is inaccurate because it uses the data and assumptions available to it at the time.

You're implying that this could mean that covid is less dangerous than estimated and therefore the government should lay off, but surely it could just as easily be inaccurate in the other direction... in which case we should be more restricted and more careful???

'completely unknown' a bit of a stronger claim than 'not perfect'.

Im not BY ANY MEANS trying to defend everything the governments done, but i do wanna contest the idea that 'the specific level of risk is not known and cannot be known' and that on that basis things should be left to individual judgment.

It's a gigantically complex issue and we as individuals are notoriously bad at performing even day to day risk calculations especially ones that have long term or societal implications. The blood pressure epidemic you mentioned being the perfect example.

And my personal risk calculation doesnt just affect me here. If im climbing and i fall i hurt myself and my friends and family. If i eat too many burgers its the same but over the longer term and i place an average burden on the health service.

Here, making an almost impossible risk assessment in a subtle/complex arena, where i may not have the information to do so or the tools to make it matter is a huge ask of the general public, and false caution is much safer than false reassurance.

The risks cannot be known perfectly but we can make increasingly educated guesses. We know that in this circumstance, almost more than any other we can imagine, the actions of each individual can have gigantic ripple effects on vulnerable, innocent people they will never get to meet.

The environment in a pub and a restaurant is much easier to control than the hugely varied home environment and the hugely complicated [sweating, exertion, surfaces] gym environment. Personally i think theyve even done what they have too soon!! But totally understand others will differ

Introduction into Germany by salt shaker. 

https://www.euractiv.com/section/coronavirus/news/pass-the-salt-how-coronav...

Personally I think education about hand-face contact and plentiful hand sanitiser should suffice where multiple people handle the same kit but there are well documented examples. The introduction to Singapore was in via a surface too, a pew. 

Jk

Just so you know, the virus spreads via respiratory secretions and not sweat. I think most people assume that sweat can carry the virus and gyms = sweat therefore covid hotspot but not the case.

The surface sharing issue affects literally all walks of life both indoor and outdoor so that's not valid specifically for gyms. Do you disinfect every item you buy at a supermarket? Or do you perhaps wash your hands after handling them/before touching food etc?

By all means say no eating at gyms, but you can't keep places closed because people may touch a shared surface and then their face that would disqualify any human activity.

Climbercool meet Occam... 

The reason these cases are well documented is because they're 'patient zero' in countries that were watchful, not that they're rare. Once transmission becomes established the stories lose their newsworthiness, doesn't mean theyvve stopped happening.

Still, it's not attacking through the skin. Don't touch your face with your hands, wash your hands frequently and before eating should be sufficient to manage the risk where the virus isn't widespread, the environment not heavily contaminated. Masks would reduce face droplet to surface contamination too but would be grim to exercise in. 

Jk

i do yes... since the epidemic started i tend to wash down the packaging with soapy water, and make sure i have a procedure for keeping the car and myself clean before i touch anything else in the house. This week the case numbers have got low enough where i feel that i can relax that a little as there are only now 30 cases in the whole county, but if theres any evidence of that picking up again ill make sure to bring those procedures back.

Trust me i get it!!! Im aching to get back as much as anyone. You can an should keep places closed where they are demonstrably more risky and susceptible to spreading infection than other places. 

It doesnt disqualify all human activity, just that human activitiy, which, on balance, places a disproporitionate burden on the ability to control risk.

Covid isnt spread directly through sweat but would increase average frequency of touching of faces, and make it more difficult to control spreading of droplets across surfaces, allow droplets to run into eyes, mouth more quickly etc. And gyms undoubtedly lead to more surface touches on average per person (and switching of places and touching other surfaces others have touched etc) over a sustained period during exertional activity which leads to heavy breathing which spreads virus etc... than almost any other activity commonly performed in our society.

so much more difficult to make that safe than to make something like shopping safe, or sitting at a table in a beer garden.

help me build a rig on wheels which whip up and down, and disinfect a route and leave no residue before being wheeled to the next one. we'll be rich!!

Individual risk assessments might be able to demonstrate that some gyms are safer than others, thatd be awesome. but i dont think weve reached the stage necessarily of being able to prove that yet. so the only option is to wait until the cases are even lower than they are now, or exercise outside.

Introduction into Germany was by someone turning round and passing a salt shaker is what your article says. It does not conclude that it was surface transmission.

https://www.krisp.org.za/news.php?id=421 - analysis of an outbreak in a south african hospital.

this study thinks that 'The evidence suggests that indirect contact and fomite transmission were likely to be the predominant modes of patient to patient transmission. We hypothesize that the main outbreak also seeded smaller outbreaks at a local nursing home (four additional cases) and at the National Renal Care outpatient dialysis unit on the hospital campus (nine additional patient cases and eight additional staff cases). Overall, we estimate that up to 135 infections may have been nosocomially acquired as a result of the single introduction of the virus to the hospital'

It was reviewed by the guys at the centre for evidence based medicine here: https://www.cebm.net/study/covid-19-hospital-outbreak-of-covid-in-south-afr...

they think that although it has some flaws, it was a pretty solid study overall. im sure you can find some issues if you look into it but i dont think there will be anything that fatally undermines the conclusion that fomite transmission is likely.

we will only know one hundred per cent when we get some full systematic reviews performed in the fullness of time but until then... why take the risk if it can be managed?

Your arguments apply to all indoor spaces. I imagine there will be no shouting, coughing or sneezing in pubs and restaurants then? Higher pollen counts will be found in beer gardens. One cough/sneeze is all it takes as you said.

If your wall doesn't want to open I don't suggest we force it to, or force people to go. My local wall in contrast does want to open and is satisfied they have done enough to keep customers and staff as safe as possible. They are closed exactly because the government is preventing them opening.

It's plainly obvious I'm using examples to support an argument and picking at the logic used for this decision, I'm not neutral on this matter. I don't see that you've quoted any data points or linked to scientific papers yourself. Are you sure you aren't arguing from your own desires to some extent?

This may be daft question but might there be something that could be added to chalk that would kill the virus? Soap powder maybe, but that would have other disadvantages.

There is an on-going study that is looking whether a dehydrating agent will denature the virus. Magnesium carbonate being a dehydrating agent of course.

im wondering what products will come out in time. issues being that virus particles are made of the same stuff we are so you can:

1. use fatty liquids like soap water or emulsifiers, which are perfect for dissolving the lipid/protein coat but are also damn good lubricants!!

2. use viricidal chemicals to damage the protein structure but these tend to be harmful to humans. i imagine spraying huge quantities of disinfectant above the heads of climbers would lead to increased cancer risk, skin irritation, eye trouble etc.

you could use PPE. so sealed goggles and N95 respirators [once you can find one somewhere in the world] would be ok but may not withstand sweatiness and jerky movements, and would limit mobility and vision and probably provide for some pretty sick degloving accidents.

could climb in a hazmat suit??

or a new practice where climbers disinfect their climbs after they top out, wear respirators and wash properly on entering and leaving the floor area, and after each climb. 

but that still wouldnt resolve asymptomatic transmission.

its a bugger. even in hospitals where everone is trained and covered in gear this thing rages around the place. 

Climbing gyms are often much better than regular gyms, as they tend to have big extraction units to deal with the chalk. 

I still don't think they should be allowed to open yet. I don't think any of the places that have been permitted to should either. All we're doing is guaranteeing ourselves another lockdown later in the year and I'm sure a lot of people would ideally like to see their family over Christmas. 

Yes, at the moments all the idiots are gathering in large non-socially distanced groups outside. By the autumn they will be doing so inside. Unless the virus is really squashed by then, I think we shall be in trouble.

Is this study specifically about climbing walls?

Your right, we don't know, me nor TomD89, but let's say I'm wrong, what happens?

At worst a climbing wall closes and someone loses their job, tragic, but not the end of the world.

we're supporting our local wall by taking out membership subscriptions to hopefully make sure it's still there when it's safe.

Now, if TonD89's wrong, we infect a load of people, some might die, but that is probably unlikely, some might end up with permanently impaired lung function, some might spread the disease to other members of their family or indeed other families, where the results might not be quite so benign.

Or wall isn't staying shut because, the owner doesn't want to open, he's staying shut because he doesn't want to cause anyone harm.

I don't want the wall not to open because I hate climbing indoors, it's because I can't see how it's going to be safe.

Just because you can do other things, I won't be going to the pub either, doesn't make it safe to open a climbing wall.

Out of most places a climbing wall will most likely have the greatest opportunity so spread the virus simply because it will only take one infected cough of someone at the top to pretty much cover the whole area.

there aren't many other places where you get that chance to infect so many people at once. From 2m, head height, a cough can spread the disease over 6m, raise that up to 20m and see how far it spreads.

Isn't liquid chalk basically alcohol anyway? 

Perhaps that and compulsory mask wearing would be a possibility. 

As masks protect others more than the wearer it would need to be everyone.  

But if you check the way the system works, they usually suck air in from outside and blow that around the building, the "excess" air simply vents out, air isn't pumped out of the building, it's pumped in, or more often recirculated through some sort of filter. This might well be worse than simple natural ventilation. At MK for example you can stand in front of the air ducting which brings air in to cool down.

One person with CV stood in front of that could easily spray the whole area.

From what I've read not high enough concentration to be a fully effective hand sanitiser. Although it must have some effect, and people are coming out with higher alcohol versions.

Yep but typically it only reaches a 40%-50% isopropyl alcohol concentration [plus magnesium carbonate], whereas the WHO reccommends a 70%-80% concentration.

maybe they could make a stronger one? but the effects of the alcohol would only last as long as it takes for the IPA to vaporize. If you touch a hold on the wall, and wipe your brow, gear, anchor, partner etc before washing your hands again... beaucoup bad luck for you

Not half a dozen posts ago, you were saying "Also isn't asymptomatic coughing a bit of an oxymoron?"

Which is why I personally think we're opening up too early, the governments own chart showed us that, but people want to do what they like doing, and the government want to look like they're in control.

It might be better if we had track and trace working well, but we haven't.

You seem to be saying, "because they're doing that I want to do this, I don't think that is safe, but I still want to do this."

I think the overall percentage of alcohol will be lower due to the chalk, but as long as the liquid component is at least  65% alcohol and the rest water then it will work.   

EDIT see article below.  

The program I watched about it, stated it was probably on the salt shaker, but even so it's not like there isn't plenty of opportunity for aerosol transmission in any gym, even more in a climbing wall.

Good article about liquid chalk https://www.gymclimber.com/can-liquid-chalk-protect-climbers-from-coronavir...

Edit, having read the article linked above the chalk means the water isnt available to help the alcohol destroy the virus.  

*I think that the chalk can probably be ignored as it won't stop the alcohol working but I'd like to hear opinions on that from someone with a biology/chemistry background.* SEE EDIT ABOVE.  

Obviously it only works for a short time but minimising risk is the idea.  If everyone cleans hands then the risk is reduced.  

I think masks would also be needed.  I can't see that being popular.  

Which country do you live in?

on 22nd there were 15 deaths, 23rd, 25 and, 24th 6 deaths.

The data shows that the Midlands is now the region of England with the largest number with 716 daily new cases. This was yesterday, in the UK.

https://covid19.joinzoe.com/post/covid-incidence-stable

Thanks.  

That is a very useful article. 

I'm derbyshire. Maybe Birmingham accounts for a lot of that? I got my figures from the Grauniad website they have a surveillance thingy but will certainly double check

Over 85% of deaths from Covid occur in the over 65's.  Maybe we should just ban people over that age from climbing gyms, rather than the whole population?

Maybe people should take personal responsibility for their own safety, rather than relying on others.  If you're at risk, be careful.  the stats basically say that I, as a healthy, young, white male from a well off background have basically zero risk of getting even mild symptoms. I don't hang around with old people generally and see my parents very irregularly.  It would be up to them whether they are will to accept the risk of seeing me, as members of a slightly higher risk group.

you might argue that i could catch it and pass it on when out and about, and thats true, but again- the best way to protect those at risk is for them to adjust their behaviour to suit.  You don't see many immune system conpromised patients from other illnesses risking going to the shops, they tend to be at home if they know that the slightest cold could kill them.

Its like people saying 'driving is dangerous, people can die, so I wont do it and neither should you'. Erm, no.... I'm happy with the risk and accept that there is a possibility i'll die, but i'll take me chances.  Its actually more like a narcoleptic epileptic saying that to you, as their risk so so much higher than mine.

"Maybe people should take personal responsibility for their own safety, rather than relying on others."

in a climbing forum.

go figure

Sorry, i'm being dense- what is your point?

That climbers are normally good at assessing risk, working within their perceived capabilities and accepting personal risk?

Or, that climbers generally rely on others in a belay situation for their safety?

or another?

moutain rescue agencies, accident and emergency departments, landowners, instructors, equipment makers, belayers, the rest of their team.

"100% of deaths from climbing occur in climbers.  Maybe we should just ban people who climb from climbing, using moutain rescue or visiting hospital

Maybe people should take personal responsibility for their own safety, rather than relying on others.  If you're at risk, be careful.  the stats basically say that I, as a non-climber have basically zero risk of getting hurt whilst climbing. I don't hang around with climbers.

you might argue that i could accidentally go climbing and get hurt, and thats true, but again- the best way to protect those shouldering the cost is for them to adjust their behaviour to suit. Why dont they just use cheaper fuel or use a cheaper helicopter or use less people on a callout. 

Its like people saying 'driving is dangerous, people can die, so I wont do it and neither should you'. Erm, no.... I'm happy with the risk and accept that there is a possibility i'll die, but i'll take me chances andnot be a burden on anyone else ever.  Its actually more like a narcoleptic epileptic saying that to you, as their risk so so much higher than mine."

so because the risk is low for you, everyone else who is vulnerable should stay home forever so you can do what you want until this magically goes away all by itself. im struggling to translate it a different way tbh.

number of new coronavirus cases per day 652 yesterday from the Guardian, but that's only new cases, there were case the day before and before that, so it's not just 652.

Maybe- how many people die from climbing every year? Or perhaps that's a silly comparison to make?

100% of people who breath oxygen die.  So we should ban people or oxygen- see, silly.

How do you accidentally go climbing?

I'm glad I clarified your position otherwise I would had continued to assume you had a valid point that I couldn't see, but clearly not!

Good luck with that, hope you're not one of the one's it permanently damages their lung, or other organs.

The risk is low for the majority of people. How is that hard to comprehend.

affect the lives of the vast majority who will be fine, or ask those at risk to make their own decision to what risk they are willing to accept, and support them if/ when they decide that they need to change their behaviours.

50% (roughly) of cases are Asymptomatic. 4% will require ongoing treatment for a period of time to fully recover, and 1% require acute care.

I cant find stats that show how those are distributed amongst the population but i would assume that if your in a low risk group of catching it/ becoming symptomatic/ dying you're going to be far removed from the group that develops ongoing/ permanent issues from a  non-lethal case of COVID- so yes, again, happy to take on that personal risk.  If you aren't, perhaps you should change your behaviour to the point you become happy with the risk.

edit:

"Not everyone who beats COVID-19 has the same risk of experiencing long-term consequences from the SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Those most at risk are “people 65 years and older, people who live in a nursing home or long-term care facility, people with chronic lung, heart, kidney and liver disease,” said Dr. Gary Weinstein, pulmonologist/critical care medicine specialist at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas (Texas Health Dallas). Additionally, he said others who could be at risk are those with compromised immune systems and people with morbid obesity or diabetes."

In reply to La benya:

You're saying that because you as a young, immortal, noble climber are so much better at assessing risk than everyone else, you shouldn't have to be burdened with the concerns of those little people who were idiotic enough to be vulnerable to virus...

...and because your sacred right to pursue this noble art is so much more important than the little people's right to leave their houses, the whole concept of shared responsibility in keeping levels of circulating virus low until a vaccine comes along can only be experienced as an intolerable burden upon your blessed freedom to go up and down a thing... a burden which can only be lifted by the little vulnerable people staying inside.

about 15-20% of people who get this disease end up in hospital my friend, young and old alike. you better pray it doesnt prove you wrong. 

damn near took me out a few weeks ago and i too am one of your supposed noble elite invulnerables.

I'm not blaming people for being vulnerable. But its a fact that some people are more so than others, why are you trying to deny that.

Im sad to hear that you had a bad time with COVID, especially so that you perceived yourself as in a low risk group.  i am saying i am willing to accept that risk, and the effects you had on the basis of the statistics backing up that i (probably) wont die, wont get too ill and it wont be that bad.  of course it might not work out that way, but i can accept that.

others, quite rightly should accept that risk, but we should be concentrating on their behaviour to protect them, not everyone elses.

edit;

Climbing is a proxy for a lot of things that have been curtailed.  please stop pretending that when we discuss climbing, we aren't also talking about everything else.  apologies if you genuinely thought this was specifically about climbing and nothing else.

Out of interest would you self isolate if asked to?

of course people are more vulnerable than others, im aware of the figures. but thats not what you're arguing.

you're saying that the freedoms of less vulnerable people are less valid than the freedoms of more vulnerable people.

so you should ban over 65's. its been shown that BAME people are more at risk, shall we ban them too? why not ban doctors and nurses actually they have a higher rate of infection than the rest of us.

soon the argument would be that anyone without antibodies stays on lockdown whilst everyone else goes free.

thats a two-tier society. some people are more deserving of freedom than others by virtue of characteristics they are unable to control.

your argument would hold if you're brave willingness to accept the risk only affected you. build your own climbing gym in your yard and stay on isolation for the rest of the year, and you can do what you want. fair?

I have been for the last 3 months, haven't you?

Of course I would. if i was scared for my health id be in bed the whole day.  if i went out, it would be because i was willing to accept the risk that i could die- hopefully i went out for a decent enough reason!

I do remember a thread at the very start of this, when the government was going to ask all over 65's to self isolate for 3 months, and all the oldies came on and basically said, bugger that, you can try and force me... blah blah blah.  I'll try and dig it out- its quite ironic now.

so you're argument against banning some people is we should be banning all people?

Can you not see that given the choice of the two, affecting the minority is the better of the two options?

if i cant have a lollipop, neither can you

edit;  and i'm not saying force them to do anything, but if they chose to go out then they have accepting the risk.  its their choice.  We should certainty support them if they decide they cant accept that risk.

So if someone coughs out of a helicopter at 25,000ft above London it could wipe out the entire city? There are other factors to consider eg. diffusion and viral load. If an infected person coughs directly into your face at close range you are more likely catch it than if someone 6-20m above you coughs and the virus disperses and diffuses. The viral load being high enough to infect your respiratory tract in this case isn't that high. Funny how we've gone from a Government approved 2m distance to now 20m not being enough, just because people are now above you rather than on the same plane. Are tall people more likely to infect others then? Are short people at greater risk?

its very far from the better of the two options. crude majoritarianism is what has led to some of the worst cruelties in our history.. that sounds like hyperbole. It isn't.

The mark of a civilized society is how it looks after its most vulnerable. It's not black and white, and we have to trade freedoms off against one another.

Where to draw the line is up for negotiation, so we can't blow your point entirely out of the water.

Uncontrolled epileptics cant drive etc, but you and the rest of the fitness communities freedom to pursue non-essential leisure activities, when weighed up against the freedom of millions of vulnerable people to avoid choking to death on their own body fluids, requires a little more subtlety, I'm sure you would agree.

https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/off_belay/over_70s_self_isolate-716999?v=...

so its ok when 65 year olds tell us to get stuffed it should be the diabetics that stay at home?

I'm not against pubs, restaurants etc opening at all, I'm for gyms opening along with them. I'm only arguing that in my estimation it's illogical to have gyms remain closed while other indoor spaces that are equally, or arguably more of, a risk are opened.

There we are. There's no point acting like we're unbiased virologists, I personally think the opposite. Why pretend there's any basis in scientific fact for the governments recent decision? If there is scientific evidence specifically for pubs being safer than gyms in this instance I'm very open to viewing and discussing it. Even quality opinions 

You nailed it here.

but its not crude, its overwhelming.

And i'm not saying force them, but if they decide to go to the climbing wall and then subsequently pop their clogs because of, we shouldn't be over reacting. let them do what they want, that includes dyin

right. 

Fair point, that one is more ambiguous than the Singaporean case.

Jk

Why do you think climbing gyms are closed? can we just clear up the fact that they arent closed to protect elderly immunocompromised climbers from the dangers being in a climbing gym.

theyre closed to stop you, me and everyone else who picks it up at a gym from spreading it to a couple of other people each.

the 65yo climber still dies whether he gets it in the gym or in the supermarket or on the bus

If the Govs trace system  contacted you and asked you to self isolate for 14 days as you had been in contact with somebody with the virus, would you self isolate?

They're closed to shield those people, as you say, from us infecting them.  I'm saying there is a better way to do that where fewer peoples' lives are affected, and everyone is in control of their own personal risk.

You seem to think that's a bonkers idea. but you cant really articulate why other than its not fair. which by every measure, on balance, it is.

When your whole business model revolves around thousands of people repeated touching the same plastic surfaces (usually in a fairly poorly ventilated building), I really cant see the case for pushing them to open earlier. 

In terms of potential for disease transmission, they must be fairly high up the list.  

isn't it not being fair enough?

youre drawing equivalence between vastly different effects. Maybe i'm mishearing you, but you're argument seems to be that it would be acceptable to leave it down to personal judgement, because people with more to lose would stay home, if they didnt want to die. freeing up people such as yourself to go climbing because they are willing to accept the risk of dying.

which in other words means you think there is some level of equality between:
 

1. a persons freedom to leave the house in relative safety because we've eliminated or massively reduced the virus and

2. our freedom to go climbing even though it risks making the pandemic more severe and last longer than it would if we all accepted certain limitations.

and finally that if it were the case that you and everyone else who was at low risk went about their business, and if that led to a worsening and lengthening of the pandemic, then if those vulnerable people dared to release themselves from complete isolation and died, that would be their fault and you get off scot free.

Ive gotta say im impressed. are you a defense lawyer?

That is sort of the exact opposite of what i have just been talking about isn't it?

Just out of curiosity, what sort of viral load does a person need to catch CV19? and your "isn't that high" is precisely what in terms of odds / viral load?

You seem to make some very authoritative claims, within your hyperbole.

Let' try this we're both stood on the floor and I try and piss on you, on a good day 2m and you be just about safe, a few splashes at most. Now, I'm 20m high and you're 6m away horizontal distance, would you look up in the air with your gob open?

We all know you're more likely to catch it if an infected person coughs in your mush, that doesn't mean you can't catch it from further away, why even bother posting that?

How about answering the question.

And there are previously fit and healthy young people who've suffered badly damaged lungs which is likely to be permanent, not many I'll grant you that, but still some.

And the estimate is only 10% of the population has had or has it, so are we looking forward to 400,000 deaths in total, sounds trivial doesn't it?

Everyone brave when it's not really affected them or their family, it's when one of them dies or suffers badly they then start to realise it's not just someone else's problem.

You'll obviously do what you want to, good luck.

by what mechanism would the pandemic get worse, if my solution was followed?

Those that were most at risk of dying wouldn't be doing so.

i also never suggested that this was a solution for 3 months ago, only that it might be now.  the situation may be different going forwards and need review- but at the moment its crazy. we've f*cked the economy, we've f*cked the under 25s (again) all to protect the old people, that judging by the thread above, arent willing to help themselves, unless we all do the same as them.

I did, despite you asking a silly question that had already been covered.

You don't need to be a scientist to know for certain, that if you don't go to crowded areas, be that a pub, gym or climbing wall, you'll stand less chance of catching covid, that's pretty obvious to anyone.

It then becomes where you rank the places you do go, in terms of risk.

You seem to think pub, gyms, and climbing walls are the same, I don't, more than that I don't see how you can't see a climbing wall might well be worse than all of those.

He actually explicitly states he has no expertise, as you don't, and that you're both drawing contrasting conclusions based on the same incomplete data.

that sounds familiar....

If only we could identify who specifically is most at risk if they went to these places, and ask them to avoid them.

No thanks.

I have every sympathy with those who own and run climbing walls, but sadly they're at the back of the queue when it comes to opening.

T.

what is your solution? it sounds like youre solution is  leaving everyone who is vulnerable to decide for themselves whether or not to stay on lockdown whilst the rest of us do what we want?

we're talking about millions of people! thousands upon thousands more of them every day.

everyone over 65, everyone with heart disease, diabetes, cancer or a host of other diseases, every healthcare worker and all BAME people.

not sure the economy would be too healthy buddy!! also if you can link me with whatever it is youre smoking that protects you from vulnerability indefinitely id appreciate it cos im desparate to get on the wall.

'by what mechanism would the pandemic get worse' if the lockdown was released and all the non-vulnerable people were allowed out and about?

the only reason we havent gone into a US style clusterf**k is ***because of the lockdown***. until we get a vaccine it is the only tool we have.

la benya you are aware that you can pass the virus on to other people if you catch it right? even if you are 'at low risk' of serious illness? 

so it doesnt really matter if they avoid high risk places if all the people who go to high risk places leave those high risk places to go and join the vulnerable people again in low risk places.

i know!! lets concentrate everyone who is at risk from the virus into one big low risk campsite, then all the non-vulnerable people could stay outside in one big high risk area! 

boom. pandemic solved.

OR, more sensibly we could ask those who cannot accept the risks associated with leading a 'normal' life at this time, to isolate themselves while we help them do this.

It then is very much of an irrelevance if i catch it and pass it to someone else, as they are either low risk, or have accepted that they are high risk and don't care.

basically, ask them to do exactly what they have been doing (and the rest of us) for the last 4 months, but allow everyone else to try and get back to normal.

How economically active do you think the over 65's are?! not very (and here comes an over 65 to tell me they are still at work blah blah- in general, they aren't in the workforce).

Do you know who are?  The under 25s... you know, those ones who have been f*cked the hardest by this lockdown.  I wonder if the pensioners will be willing to give up their triple lock pension now?

but again, your not wanting to lockdown loads of people in the high risk groups leads you to say we should all be locked down instead... Its mental!

If this lasts until im 65 then we have bigger issues than anything you or i could find to smoke would fix.

sounds seductive, but you will end up with a lockdown of the vulnerable millions, and a 'big-burn' of virus through the supposedly 'low-risk' or willlingly accepting population.

millions of people.

that would still lead to huge death rates. lets do a fag packet.

so the compound case fatality rate against postive tests is something like 14%. taking a reasonable guess that tested cases represent about a fifth of true cases, we could probably assume a compound CFR of around 3%. This is weighted heavily towards the elderly and vulnerable.

So a reasonable guess that CFR for 'non-vulnerable' groups could be 0.2%. I could be out a bit but not by orders of magnitude.

You're still looking at 50 or 60 thousand deaths in a short period. Hundreds more medical staff dead. Outbreaks in workplaces, factories, processing plants, deprived communities, hospitals, care homes.

you arent just talking about the over 65s. youre argument is that all high risk groups should decide for themselves whether to stay locked down in the context of low risk groups abandoning the attempt to stop the virus circulating.

that affects vulnerable people from all age groups. 

CRM for the entire population is 0.24%.  That's 160k.  85% of that is attributable to 12m of the population.

That leaves 15% or 24k deaths for 'low' risk groups (55m people).  im sure you can further figure out how to apportion that to diabetics, heart disease sufferers etc etc.

Very bad, but would disappear into insignificance once compared to the excess deaths over the next 10 years if we continue to trash the economy, delay medical treatment for curable disease etc.

a figure that gets thrown around for excess deaths caused by austerity from the last financial crisis is circa 1m.

I'm sorry, I know its not popular, but i'm comfortable with that number and the net equation.

I asked you a specific question about self isolation which you have not answered..

okay, lets take your figures and go with them - the rate of death and morbidity is also important. so the absolute numbers argument is a bit of a canard.

the point is that all this death happens so quickly that it effectively destroys the health service and brings parts of certain industries to a halt. and behind all that death is the weeks and weeks of sickness and illness that doesnt lead to death but does lead to people not being able to work, study, take exams, go on holidays or participate in economic life, whilst the 12m as you say vulnerable people cower in their homes waiting for it all to be over, and the drivers bringing them their food get sick, and the doctors giving them their medication get sick and the hospital system they need to stay well creaks under the strain of the pandemic tearing through the other 55m you so confidently deem low-risk.

the idea that you can 'control' the burn of the virus through the population is what led to the governments initial failed herd immunity policy. its like trying to control a smouldering fire by only dribbling the petrol in. one slip and you blow your arm off.

its frankly mental and borderline fascist to seal 12 million people away and gamble with the lives of the other 55m.

The record for developing a vaccine from scratch is 4 years and the average is 10. There's a good chance there will NEVER be a vaccine.

Are you seriously suggesting that, if there's no vaccine, we all stay locked down for the rest of our lives?

Destorys the health service?! Weve had field hospitals sitting empty for months. The only thing being destroyed is planned care for other diseases. Where have you been for the last months.

It was definitly wise to be cautious when this all started but its plainly ridiculous now. We have had more than enough resources to deal with it up until now. But your saying we will crumble from (let's assume my numbers are correct) 50% less deaths going forwards. 

You just come across as an alarmist that hasn't actually thought it through. You a reveling in the drama of it all and what to cry bloody murder for the rest of time. I just want to get on with things. 

Yes that's clearly so. I guess getting drunk and eating in a shared public space is more important to public health than exercise, especially during a time with a virus that seems to be specifically deadly to the obese and diabetics. 

Flawless logic.

We're already years ahead of that though, they are trailing something like 10 different vaccines on people already throughout the world, the UK are testing 2 different ones.

You're right though there might never be a vaccine, but that doesn't mean we have to live with CV19 hanging over our heads forever. Without a host the virus dies out, it is possible it would die out simply by sheilding everyone for a period of time.

It happened in Australia and NZ, of course it started back up again, by mistakes in quarantine rules.

You keep saying this bollocks as if young fit people don't suffer, most don't but the point is SOME do and it's not a piece of piss to get over and it can do a lot of damage.

So how do you know you aren't one of those people, or your best mate isn't one of those people, just because you're young isn't a passport to freedom. However much you want it to be.

 Without a host the virus dies out

Kill the entire human population you say? Hmmm I could get behind that. It would satisfy my nihilistic tenancies and cure that insufferable case of the human condition. 

Oh! FFS! what's the result if I'm wrong? and what's the result if they're, and you are wrong?

If both outcomes were the same then I'd agree, but they are very very different, even you must be able to see that.

Fixed that for you.  No need for thanks.

T.

Some young people will suffer From alzheimers or prostate cancer.  That doesn't mean their significant enough to bother changing the way we deal with these things.

As I've said many times. I accept the personal risk I have that I may catch it and die. Just as I accept the risk every time I drive a car. 

I dont think I'm invincible at all. If I pop my clogs so be it. 

youre right, thats possible. but technologies advance and the best estimate/hopes we have are for vaccines to be available at the 18 month mark. i think we can get closer to that target than the 3 months weve managed so far, taking into account the risks. obviously i would reassess if it was looking more like 4 years or more. im not an idiot.

You ruin the economic prospects of an entire generation. You condemn many thousands of sick people to a grueling early death from a preventable disease. You destroy the quality of life of a great many people. 

There's good an bad outcomes from both sides. I accept your position of caution but it's clearly not the only position to take.

ive been studying for a medical degree and working in a hospital mate, what about you?

theyre sitting empty because of the lockdown you clot. we obviously havent had more than enough resources to deal with it if weve been cancelling planned care, shunting student medics and nurses into service provision, turning operating theatres into makeshift ICUs, stretching staff-patient ratios to breaking point.

we may have 50% less deaths but THE PANDEMIC WILL CONTINUE until we reach herd immunity. whereas with a lockdown weve managed to control it. if we stop the lockdown up it will again start.

an alarmist reveling in the drama. classy. you are more than welcome to go out and get yourself infected if thats what you want to do. just dont expect the rest of us to pick up the pieces

Out of interest, how is 'the way we deal with these things', exactly?

T.

In 18 months you won't have a functioning country to call home. In 18 months you will have killed far more people than you've saved by unintended consequences. 

Where is your personal cut off where the lives lost from other causes outweighs the lives saved from covid? 

who's the alarmist

Focusing efforts specifically on those lost in need. You don't go shoving a finger up everyone's butt. Just those over the age of 50.

The pubs are opening despite the fate of gyms so I guess even if I am wrong infections will rise as of July 4th and gyms will likely open an arbitrary 2 weeks later with no real additional changes to safety. Is that a win for you? 

Still you.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/ma...

That's screening. What is the difference when a patient presents and is diagnosed?

T.

I'm sorry you've lost me. What's you're point?

I responded to someone saying 'but some young people get it too' paraphrased. My point was so what? They are significant. Don't focus on them. Don't change their behavior or focus treatment on them. It's old codgers we need to focus on. 

And my point was to ask you for specifics to back up your assertion.  Because if you can't provide specifics, it's just noise we can discount.

T.

Nicely done La Benya!!! tied your argument up with a nice little bow there, so if we end the lockdown and let covid spread... less people will get tuberculosis!! the logic is so clean and crisp.

an uncontrolled viral pandemic leading to hundreds of thousands of deaths will save the economy, millions of jobs, the mental health of a nation , will cure TB, polio, HIV and hepatitis. its genius. 

"How is it possible that 6 months into this pandemic we''re still having a conversation as to weather the virus spreads through surface contact, this is massively important and seemingly would be very very easy to verify. "

We aren't.

We know transmission is low risk but not no risk. TBH the greater risk will be enclosed areas and people breathing heavily and shouting. 

We are fairly confident the main spread is liquid droplets released when coughing or shouting, hence why we should wear masks when we can't socially distance or indoors.

"the only reason we havent gone into a US style clusterf**k is ***because of the lockdown***. until we get a vaccine it is the only tool we have."

The UK has it worse.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

Deaths per million cases are higher. The US may have more cases but we've largely controlled it in the NE.

Some states are more in control than others but here in Mass we've been using masks for months. I'm amazed the UK is only just starting to come around. You are months behind the more progressive areas of the US.

And you've opened up before it is controlled.

100% agree. we'e playing with fire. There's an element of chance and randomness in all this which means that we cant be very sure when or how badly it will come back but we're opening up too quickly and too soon and lots of people are more likely to get hurt than they should be. Yes, lockdown is really very bad in lots of ways, but in all ways its better than the alternative, by any reasonable assessment of the risks.

It's not a win for anyone, is it?

Opening anything up base don time is the shittest of shit ideas, we should be opening things up based on cases and testing to prove the cases are low or falling. We're doing none of this very successfully. We're still in stage 3 of the 4 stage opening up strategy the gov. published months ago, and yet we're relaxing things as if we're in stage four!

If we have no real track and trace in place and we get another spike, which looking around the country looks almost a guarantee, then we'll end up with another lockdown and more deaths, it's happening NOW in the US. That will hurt the economy more and the climbing walls more.

The other option is death, sound like you're on a winner. What do you think another round of lockdown is going to do to your exhaustive list.

FFS! Really? I'm out, good luck with your covid, hopefully you'll be OK and hopefully you don't pass it one to someone else.

Or before we can trace people, with our "world beating track and trace"

We’ve done the same here. And our antibody tests are not that good. Many who have them, then test negative on the second test. It doesn’t instill confidence..

please everyone do not feed the troll. 

Petition all you like but I doubt you will get anywhere with it. 

Petitions have been devalued since the dawn of the online petition, it is too easy to sign now so vastly greater numbers are required. 

The only petitions currently being given any heed are the parliament petitions, change, 38 degrees all being disregarded. There is even a petition going campaigning to have petitions recognised. 

If 1M plus signatures regarding Dominic Cummings are ignored, what chance do you give a few 10s if ks if you are lucky? 

Better off trying to find a sympathetic pro footballer but I think they are busy now. 

A different opinion to yours makes me a troll?

wow, I bet you have a fun and diverse group of friends.

will be the first to admit passions got a little inflamed yesterday. much like the weather. he could just as well be referring to me.

no getting away from the fact that on the one or two points at stake yesterday there was some pretty fundemental disgreement but im sure if we were sat over a pint rather than bashing away pointlessly from behind a keyboard we'd find more we agreed on than not, including the two incontrovertible facts that being alive is nice and beer is tasty.

we tilted towards character attacks at a couple of points but wisely steered away i think. arguments were in good faith, i think. can't say fairer than that.

anyway there no point in going around in circles, i think gyms should stay closed for a bit longer, you don't. both arguments are rooted in a concern for others. the truth is probably somewhere in the middle as it usually is. peace be upon you one and all

I simply cannot accept pubs are safer than climbing walls. Sitting across from others for long periods in comparatively small areas, drunk, talking loudly, spraying droplets at each other across a table and sharing surfaces and contacting surfaces to your mouth and people respecting distancing less as they get steadily more drunk. Plus you've then got people using public transport or sharing lifts to get home, or drunk driving to avoid that!

I don't think anyone disputes that obese and diabetic people are more at risk, alcohol consumption makes it worse and exercise makes it better.

Would you have a problem if they'd said gyms can open but kept pubs/restaurants/hairdressers closed for a further 2-4 weeks?

You do know that people can go to a pub and not get drunk, don't you?

And, of course, nobody at a wall talks loudly, stands close together or ever, EVER takes public transport!

Appreciate that Si (and agree), cheers.

My mate in his late 20s was a healthy near daily squash player, I saw him yesterday and he's barely got the breath or energy to walk the dogs round the block two months on from getting ill. He wasn't even hospitalised with it. His partner has recovered well. We really don't know who this kills or maims with enough accuracy to shield only those people even if that were realistically an option with the virus truly running rife outside their bubbles.

jk

I suspect many arguing walls may not be a very safe place with covid cases in them might agree busy pubs are no more so. We don't make policy but we can choose not to campaign for more policy we disagree with.

No. We do have to experiment to see what the actual effect of relieving/imposing particular measures is, doing it in granular steps spaced sufficiently far apart to leave significant fingerprints in test data is sensible. Personally, given we missed the best opportunity by forgoing strong early measures, I think a slightly deeper and or longer lockdown dramatically reducing the caseload while building serious investigative test and trace capability would have been a real investment for the coming year(s). The current T&T system while pretty big is basically just anonymising calls to known contacts so as to reduce stigma, it doesn't track down stranger contacts, that's undoubtedly of some value but how much, we'll have to wait and see.

jk

Yes but living in the real world I expect a decent majority will be imbibing. The point of a pub is to socialize mainly yes? Or are we going to quibble with that too? Gyms can be set up in such a way as to allow individuals to get on with training and discouraging socializing but pubs are essentially there for that purpose.

Pubs are far easier to control. It is simple if they do not follow the rules then their licence will be withdrawn and closure follows.Simple as that.Same with restaurants.

So its self enforcing.

Massachusetts has had nearly double the number of deaths per million compared to the UK.

MA includes Boston as I am sure you know.If NY has had it bad then its a fair bet that Boston will be hit in the same way.

I believe the pubs will mostly attempt to follow rules but can't see that drunk patrons will necessarily. Does that rely on members of the public to report to a governing body or do inspectors/police do checks?

Don't see how it'd be any harder to shut a gym for similar infractions.

Mainly police and the licensing authorities. 

it really will be pretty easy to enforce imho.  Without an alcohol licence you can’t trade in effect. And it’s really bad news to have it withdrawn. 

Gyms generally do not sell alcohol. So different regime. 

gyms are usually part of national chains these days, often as franchises. So they will follow the rules. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/25/us/coronavirus-cases-young-people.html?r...

You may like this article from New York Times on the virus with young people. Makes you step back and think. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/25/us/coronavirus-cases-young-people.html?r...

You may like this article from New York Times on the virus with young people. Makes you step back and think. 

It's obvious, some people think they know, and it's usually young people who think that! Many don't realise there are all sorts of problems in-between having no symptoms and dying, I suppose because that's the only figure we get given.

The average age from Florida a month ago for cases was about 65, last week it was 35, so young people thinking they're going to be OK, isn't a given.

I would naturally assume 20-30 year olds are more likely to want to go and socialize sooner than older people. I expect the pub will be up there on places to do that in.

I think you assume too much.

Presumably you are talking about the same facts as those presenting in the NYT article linked above by Neil?

The article just states that young people are making up a larger proportion of cases- it says nothing about the severity of cases. This would seem to make sense as young people are being less careful in their social distancing as they are at less risk of bad effects/ the protest happening recently/ generally more social in large groups/ schools- will have kids of a young and hard to control from a distancing perspective.

The average age of positive results being lower could seem to actually be a positive, as it could mean less older-and therefore more at risk-people are catching it. i said could, as it is impossible to draw any conclusions from that.

Boston was an early outbreak. There was a biogen conference plus it spread up from the cases down on the NY/CT border. We were hit bad but it was largely Boston and the suburbs.

but we were very compliant as a state. If I go to the store EVERYONE has a mask on. I was in NH yesterday and nobody had one on. there’s massive resistance to masks in some states.

our numbers are good right now as a state. A really good example of how it can be controlled with compliance.

The numbers I quoted were for hospital admissions, sorry I didn't make that very clear.

I agreed with you and the article. Maybe be more constructive and clear with your criticism? Not really much can be taken from:

Why would you assume that? I'm 50 and I'd love to go and socialise sooner rather than later, I'd also love to go to the pub. Most of my mates are around the same age, they have the same feelings as me.

Interesting- do you have a source?

neilh linked the article perhaps discuss that with him. I'm not that interested in the age question it raised just responding to what he said generally agreeing that younger people are likely less apprehensive about meeting in public spaces than older people. If you and your mates are exceptions more power to you.

I do not think they are exceptions far from it. The spending power of older people is far greater and you only have to go into bars/ restaurants to figure that out.

If anything socializing for the over 20's is on the decline, going to the gym etc is far more appealing and drinking is on the decline for that age group.

From the NHS

"Shunning alcohol becomes 'mainstream' among young people as a third are now teetotal," reports The Independent.

A study involving nearly 10,000 young people in the UK found that the proportion of 16- to 24-year-olds who say they never drink alcohol rose from 18% in 2005 to 29% in 2015. The study also found that young people who did drink alcohol were drinking less nowadays and that binge drinking rates were falling.

The researchers said the drop in numbers of young people drinking suggested a shift in attitudes towards alcohol. They say this could be due to increased awareness of the health risks of alcohol, as well as changes in the way young people spend their leisure time.

The researchers observed a decrease in drinking in most groups of young people, including those in employment, in education, and with generally healthy lifestyles, and across all income groups.

A busy bouldering gym is pretty much like a busy night club with the provisio that everyone in the night club has to play pass-the-parcel to simulate the sharing of holds.  I can't really think of a more favourable environment for spreading covid than this.

For now we've got the great outdoors to play on so best be patient.

I think, and I might be wrong, but Neilh was disputing the fact young people are the ones who want to meet up, you made a great many assumptions, most of which don't allpy to me and my buddies, and I suspect Neil was also thinking the same.

I think walls can open with a cap on numbers (only an issue at busy times) and other mitigating actions such as requiring people to wash their hands before and after (admittedly that’s hard to enforce) and making hand sanitiser readily available. May be even face masks but that feels OTT - climbing isn’t aerobic and spacing people out should be sufficient mitigation.

The main issues are overcrowding (limit numbers) and hold contact (wash hands). Both of these things can be mitigated.

The cost would go up but I don’t mind paying more if I can see that it costs more per customer because there are fewer customers and more associates costs.

This is what I’m wondering as well. Sure, good hand hygiene is ok pets to but just how paranoid should we be about touching things? Is wearing gloves sensible or unnecessary? We need research and scientific answers.

Let’s forget climbing walls for a moment. I live in a massive apartment block with several hundred other people. It’s entirely possible that door handles, particularly the front door one which everyone uses, are contaminated. Should I use a glove or not? Most of the time I do (an outdoor leather one - I have a few and quarantine them for a few days after each use). If I don’t, I treat the hand which used the door handles as dirty and basically don’t use it for anything (this is fine if I’m just going for a walk, whereas if I’m driving I have to use a glove to then have a clean hand to drive). Am I being OTT? I want to know!

Think is, I don’t generally see other people using gloves and yet they haven’t died of Covid yet. May be washing hands upon getting home is sufficient after all? Or perhaps it’s because my neighbours are mostly young people who only get the sniffles, as Trump put it, so many of them have had it without realising because they got infected via the door handles. Who knows... 

Anyway, point being, these are the things which it would actually be useful to know yet I’ve not seen anything about it in the press conferences etc. 

How often do you see people coughing at walls? Not often. Yes, it can be a problem if it’s crowded but that’s where limiting numbers comes in.

I don’t really see how pubs are different. Also an indoor space (beer gardens are obviously different), in fact usually a much smaller one. People in groups not necessarily observing SD (I can’t see how this will work - people can just claim to be a household group / bubble / whatever). Getting pissed, shouting and singing. Plus eating and drinking. Above all, millions of people go to the pub which dwarfs the numbers going to climbing walls. 

And yet the pubs are opening up. I wouldn’t mind the walls staying closed if the pubs stayed closed as well. As it is, it’s just random and inconsistent. But I suspect gyms and walls will be allowed to open later in July.

Then we’ll get a second wave in the autumn (gyms or no gyms) and everything will be fucked anyway. Although interesting that Neil Ferguson said today that he wasn’t expecting a second wave, just sporadic outbreaks. Thing is, that relies on the government being vaguely competent and being able to control things...

I think you’re misunderstanding him - there must be a reason why younger people are getting more cases in Florida, they’re ignoring the rules more.  Here you can look at the beaches and just see who’s there ignoring the rules, it’s largely younger people.

You’re probably right that they won’t use the pubs as much, with the rules as they are they’re not really pubs, more like restaurants...

You aren't being OTT, the evidence that it is spread by surfaces is good enough not to risk it. Overall attack rates are low enough that each individual still has a low probability of meeting or knowing people who've had it but frankly it's just luck rather than anything else that you haven't met anyone yet.

Also, bear in mind you could have met a bunch of people who didn't realise they were mildly ill or asymptomatic but still shedding virus.

Gloves are a great piece of kit for negotiating obstacles like entrances and exits but they are overused and give people a false sense of security. Walking around with a pair of gloves on from location to location is a very excellent way to spread the virus and if used casually or incorrectly (e.g. when handling or removing) they're pretty great at spreading it right into you.

Seeing people in supermarkets remove their facemasks to rub their nose whilst walking from section to section with gloves on is enough to make me cringe pretty heavily.

They need to be used for single location 'episodes' such as whilst negotiating a heavily used entranceway and then binned safely ASAP then hands sanitised immediately with 70% alcohol gel or soapy water.

All surfaces touched in the interim between glove removal and hand washing then also need taking care of. Like the surface of your bottle of hand sanitizer for example. Or counter tops, phones and fridge doors. This is doubly true if not using gloves at all.

It's risky trying to walk about with a 'hot' hand without using it for any length of time as a lot of face touching or cross contamination is either subconscious or unpredictable or both.

If using masks, careful choreography on removal also needs to be thought about after use as they will potentially be clogged with virus particles. 

Again risk is low but you only need to get it wrong once.

Whilst cases are low this is less of an issue but I'd wager that the mental discipline needed to perform procedure adequately day in day out is something worth practising in readiness for when cases do rise again. It will be highly protective for you and your loved ones.

Sounds like you’re very stringent. Not a bad thing. I’ve found that having a hot / dirty hand in a glove works fine. Use the other hand to scratch the nose or whatever, I got into that discipline pretty quickly. I think having both hands gloved is actually worse in most cases.

Things is, most people aren’t that strict about it and yet only about 5-8% of the population have had it, so I do wonder if the risk of spread via touching things is overstated. Not zero of course. Which I why I’d like some concrete numbers, not one off cases. 

One study from South Africa was linked to upthread but that is the only one that shows any evidence of surface transmission.

This is from the CDC in America "It may be possible that a person can get COVID-19 by touching a surface or object that has the virus on it and then touching their own mouth, nose, or possibly their eyes. This is not thought to be the main way the virus spreads, but we are still learning more about how this virus spreads." But they don't cite any evidence of cases caused by surface transmission.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/how-covid-sp...

The Koch Institute in Gernmany have not found any cases caused by surface transmission. The walls in Germany have been open for nearly 3 weeks now, some since 11th May.

If the evidence was good enough then there would be rules about handling stuff in shops.

And even after all that evidence our government are suggesting to pubs that the virus remains viable for 72 hours on a hard surface! It's in the documentation they are sending out to all pub before the big opening next week

So who's right?

im not as stringent is ive stated there but my situation allows me to go about my business day-to-day with a very low number of social contacts. im careful when going to and getting home from the supermarket but really thats the only time at the moment that im coming into contact with joe public.

5-8% of the population is a lot of people!

ha ha ha  I don't know what walls you go to but almost every wall I've been to.

I climb with two people who have hay-fever, I've seem one of them sneeze for about two minutes.

Limiting numbers will help, but one infected person sneezing, could spread it out through the whole room.

It doesn't matter what the logic is though because people don't care, they want to make excuses to do things they WANT to do, and so we'll have places opening up to a date based schedule, rather than a case based one.

we'll have people making all sorts of wild claims, to try and justify why something that might be deadly or seriously damage people should go ahead.

The virus can be spread by people talking, that's talking not coughing, not sneezing, just talking, and your trying to tell me people don't often cough, well it doesn't need often, it doesn't need coughing.

i understand your point, but in circumstances like this i would counsel against expecting scientific studies to be able to provide a 'beyond reasonable doubt' level of proof. this soon into the pandemic, studies just aren't going to be able to do that, in one direction or the other.

If studies like the south african hospital one i posted [which isnt the only one of its kind and more are ongoing] aren't good enough, its worth having a think to yourself what would be. What do you want a scientific study to be able to tell you, that would convince you to change your mind?

If the standard of evidence you need to convince you that the threat of surface transmission needs to be mitigated is beyond the reach of current studies for whatever reason [cost, complexity, safety, urgency, etc], then you aren't going to find out that you're wrong. Even if you are.

Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence, as we like to say.

So it does come down at a certain level to judgment. In my opinion and in the opinion of many experts [of whom i am certainly not one], the costs of being wrong about surface contact outweigh the costs of mitigating the threat, as large as those costs are.

i think we can say with a reasonable level of confidence that surfaces [fomites in the lingo] probably are a significant contributor to transmission, based on what we know about infection spread generally, more narrowly about similar viruses and with the emerging evidence about covid. 

God knows id prefer to be wrong. Let's hope i am.

Graeme i put your reply against the wrong post, you probably noticed!! soz for any cofusion. my reply to cobrahead is for you.

as a side point, i would say that its part of the culture of rigorous scientific investigation that they talk in terms of possibility and probability rather than certainty.

You will very rarely hear a good scientist or researcher say they are certain about anything, as opposed to your charlatans and politicians.

If a scientific study says they think something is probably true - they feel pretty flipping sure about it. only when a truly overwhelming body of evidence builds up about a topic do scientists begin talking about truth in any definitive sense. that takes a lot of time and investment.

if you were a scientist running this study - how would you PROVE that a given person caught it from a surface rather than the air. or vice versa. 

incredibly difficult. that doesnt mean it isnt happening

Let indulge and say it's very unlikely to catch from a surface, this still doesn't mean opening climbing walls will be any safer.

The chances of picking up aerosols in confined space like a climbing wall is still going to be very high.

Well they've announced that you can travel to certain European countries (seemingly Spain, France, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Finland, Belgium, Turkey, Germany and Norway) and not have to self-isolate upon return as of July 6th. In theory then it'd be possible to take a trip abroad for a week or two, see some sights, chill out, visit their gyms for some training on the side and then return with no bother.

Except they won't be 'busy' in any real sense as they will have reduced capacity. They were never going to return to maximum capacity day one.

Simply sharing holds doesn't cause you to be infected with the virus. Good hygiene works to solve transmission still. You don't need to clean holds every time if you clean your hands.

I've been climbing outdoors every week since they eased outdoor restrictions. This involves sharing holds and not having hand sanitiser stations dotted around for convenience. It also brings more people together from further afield than a local gym would. 

Are you really sure climbing at the crag all day then nipping down the pub for a couple is in any real sense safer than visiting your local gym?

It’s possible that things are opening up a bit too soon but they have to open up sooner or later before the economy keels over and people go potty from not having anything (fun) to do. They could have kept the shops and pubs closed a few weeks longer but it won’t have been feasible to keep them closed for a few more months. Not sure how much difference a few weeks would make at this stage. It’s a difficult balance and I have some sympathy for the government, though they’ve been pretty shambolic on the whole.

The thing that gets me is the inconsistency between pubs and gyms/walls.

Talking and especially shouting or singing can indeed spread it - but that’s much more of an issue for pubs than gyms / walls, yet it’s the pubs which are open. Besides, this risk can be mitigated by maintaining social distancing.

Not sure about a single cough infecting the whole climbing wall. You need to bear in mind viral load as well. 

I think some of the more spacious walls around would be absolutely fine in this regard, it would be easy to keep >2m apart at all times, especially if numbers were limited slightly. However some of the busier walls, especially those in small spaces in London, will be worse than a busy pub pre lockdown. These will have to change a lot to be able to open before there is a vaccine or effective drugs.

The only thing in my opinion that is still a valid reason for the blanket ban is contact transmission. If the industry is on its game, they will be sponsoring a study of whether there is any transmission at all the walls that have opened outdoors across Europe. 

You mean like having a weekly meeting with walls & associations & national federations from across Europe and North America? Well guess what's been happening since the early days of lock down.

Hi Graeme, yes, I'd read about that, sounds like a good idea. I know many walls are working really hard on this, including the one I go to.  I wasn't intending to imply that you weren't on your game, simply suggesting something I think would a good idea to build some evidence. Are you doing anything like that study I suggest, as an industry group?

There is no formal study, only anecdotal evidence. I will ask aroundd during Wednesday's meeting.

Well you wouldn't be, because it doesn't fit your stance, but there's a certainty that if the wall isn't open there'll be no chance of a single cough spreading it around the whole wall.

We don't know, which is the point, there's a way to find out though.

Again though, as single cough or sneeze at the top of the wall will have more chance of spreading to to more people on the same level, like a pub.

No! nobody is sure, that's the whole point, on top of that you don't know either, you're simply stating your opinion time and time again.

Without any testing in the first place we don't know how easily it's spread, look at the meat plants and see how it can spread.

Sure, keeping the walls closed will avoid any risk of spread via the walls. But you could apply that logic to anything. Ideally, we would keep all non-essential business closed but that’s not feasible because the economy would go down the drain and they can’t afford to keep the furlough scheme going forever. So things need to open up in as safe a way as possible. I think climbing walls are feasible with a cap on numbers. What I don’t agree with is the fact that gyms and walls are closed while the pubs are opening up. 

Seems like we need an experiment.  Open one reasonably large wall for a couple of months with CCTV everywhere (so it is possible to go back and look at video if someone gets infected to try and work out how it happened) and complete tracking of everyone who uses it.  

Far better to try it on one wall and get some evidence on how risky it is than suddenly open every wall in the country.

Does anyone know if there is significant amounts of the virus in sweat?  If so it would seem that touching a surface immediately after a sweaty person then touching your face could be a risk.

perhaps we should just open one big pub for a couple of months too?

No sweat doesn't transmit the virus. Only directly through droplets expelled from the respiratory tract, and indirectly through surfaces (where insufficient care is taken via hygiene before touching mouth).

Check Johns Hopkins or WHO or UK government and NHS guidelines.

Would also suggest googling "Norway coronavirus gym study" which may be interesting to you.

Can we note also that we didn't do any of these 2 month long trial run tests for supermarkets, non-essential shops of every variety, pubs, restaurants, hairdressers etc etc. 

But we're happy to guess and go for it in every instance but gyms. Either focus on getting every other facet of life halted and thoroughly tested before re-opening or let gyms open as everything else has with safety precautions. Again no-one is forcing you to go.

Your arguments to keep them closed don't follow science, logic or precedent.

We should have and we should have started the experiments earlier.   It is stupid to make decisions for every business in the country without at least collecting some data to base it on and it is not a difficult thing to do.  We should also have tried opening one school or all the schools in one city and collecting some data before doing it for the whole country.

So you say, I still think a climbing wall is probably the easiest place to spread the virus, apart from a brothel.

Do what you want obviously,  there's plenty of reasons you'll be safe, after all how many people cough at a climbing wall?

I've not said only climbing walls shouldn't open there are plenty of place that I don't think should be opening up, while we're not anywhere near what we were told we'd need to be, before opening stuff up.

Track and trace might be nice and testing!

I'll stay away, and the guinea pigs can go first. Meanwhile I'll carry on paying my monthly subscription to our local wall and support them that way.

Coughing happens everywhere and there's plenty of situations where people are physically above others. No-one was saying 2 meters social distance was a problem in supermarkets and elsewhere, now your suggesting one cough can infect an entire climbing center. Do you support 4 meter social distancing in supermarkets? 

Is your local gym on the smaller side by any chance? In general all climbing centers I've visited (at least 10) are bigger and allow more room for distancing than your average pub or shop by quite a bit, my local being the smallest was expecting to allow 40 people maximum capacity and requiring time slots to be booked to enter. Pre-Covid it's max capacity was probably close to 100.

Funnily enough Switzerland and Austria already are re-opening brothels while we're still dithering about spacing people out in a gym, ridiculous!

I totally respect you continuing to support your local wall and your right to wait to return. Many others will make the same decision. 

Where else are people above each other? 

It's not ridiculous as they can only do that due to low infection levels in those countries. I'm sure there will be strict rules (if you excuse the pun).

Where are people above others?

You example of a supermarket, most people are all on the same level.

I'm saying that because it might, but you keep ignoring what I'm saying by whataboutery, I'm not saying you can't catch it elsewhere, I'm saying at a climbing wall you have a lot of people above other people, and the droplets from a cough or sneeze can travel a long way.

MK wall has an air system the blows air around the building, one sneeze into that and it's spread throughout the building, it's not a small wall, and it's not comparable to a supermarket.

Which means the viral load will be miniscule!

Multi-tiered pubs, bars and shops. Building sites, warehouse stores. Shopping centers. Factories with raised walkways and mezzanines. Many more that are outside my immediate imagination.

You keep ignoring my point that if you can have all these things open without worrying about coughs, ventilation and increased distancing (airplanes, taxis, trains and buses acceptable as well). You can't open everything but gyms arbitrarily. We haven't seen a spike with all these things back to some degree.

Does every indoor space but the gym have medical grade air ventilation? Are people sneezing directly into vents at your wall? I think your imagination is a bit vivid and slightly unrealistic to be honest.

My small local is comparable to 1.5-2 Tesco express in size. Bigger gyms like Harrow or Yonder could easily compare to a decent sized Tesco. Sneezing at the top of Kendal wall would give you 18.5M social distance. You must realise that a full strength sneeze in your face at one metre creates greater transmission than a sneeze that has run through an entire length of venting systems and spread across entire buildings square footage? If your viewpoint was the case we'd have had an extinction level event in April.

Fair enough if you argue for wearing masks or reducing capacity further etc but blanket closure is nonsense.

There was a good article on this website a few months ago... https://www.ukclimbing.com/news/2020/03/climbing_wall_use_during_the_covid-...

How much viral load do we need to make us sick?

I do realise that, but once again you are stating things without knowing the facts, MK vent system drags air in from outside, it blows it directly into the building after, depending on the season and the position of a damper, mixing it with some or none of the air within the building.

it blows this air into the building about 8-10 feet off the ground, if someone was stood in front of this, as often happened on warm day, to cool down, and sneezed, the resulting plume of virus laden splodge would get spread very quickly around at least half of the wall.

Now, you and other might, just be right, that it might not hold enough virus to spread it, but as we don't know how much we need or how much dose is in a sneeze, it seems a little risky to me.

All your examples, don't have half the population of an area, directly above the other half, with nothing in between, so as two or three level shopping centre has a massive area of floor space to collect much of the virus.

Like I said, you and a few other have convinced yourself it's safe, so knock yourselves out.

Your assertion about Kendal wall seems to forget about gravity altogether.

There is a floor below the people upstairs which will catch the droplets.  

Possible.  But usually outdoors.  

Health and safety would control that. 

Where in a shopping centre are you immediately above someone without a floor?  Only if you hang over a railing. I presume security would stop that kind of behaviour.  

A fair amount of the particles will be caught on the mezzanine flooring but some could go through.  

2m is the distance between people where most of the particles will fall to the floor.  It's a parabola.  

If you are immediately below someone the particles will fall onto you.  The height doesn't matter.  2m is irrelevant if you are vertically below.  

Back in April, I read an article (who iirc) which gave the following data:

An expulsion from an infected person (cough, sneeze) contains 200 000 000 virus particle typically 1000 virus particles are required to transfer the infection.

1 sneeze has the potential to infect 200 000 people. Are you comfortable with that raining on you from 20m up, or having landed on the hold you will use later and then scratch your nose? 

To be fair, are people going to be below someone climbing? Not in a bouldering wall which is controlling numbers and where people are observing SD. It could be more of an issue for lead walls.

For bouldering that could be worked around by leaving gaps between problems and taping a line on the mats behind which those not climbing must remain.  Might reduce accidents too!

Yeah, for lead and toprope walls it's difficult not to get within 2m of someone, at least when lowering, though that contact is somewhat fleeting.  Toprope probably easier - so maybe no leading for now?

You are going to struggle to pack your 200,000 people around your sneezer in sufficient density that they all recieve enough viral particles to get infected. That's probably not what you meant, but it is the nature of the issue.

I was thinking climbing walls not bouldering walls.  Hopefully people aren’t under each other there.  

I'm going to say I'm happier being sneezed on by someone 20 meters away vertically and 2 meters away horizontally than someone 2 meters away.

I think the viral load between the two is going to be significantly different. 

That being said, I can't think of a cimbing centre that can clean all of their their holds properly even as infrequently as once a week.

And a fair proportion of virus carrying aerosols will have a population of <999,hence my use of the word potential. 

It gets complicated with restrictions on leading as there will be family / household groups.

You only need to pass it on to two though and then they pass it on to another two each, to get us back to a lockdown situation. That's the nature of the issue.

Neglecting gravity, that would be great. Now imagine I'm trying to piss on you, which would you rather be?

Correct it probably is, it will most likely be more from up above. Though neither of us really know. So where's the risk?

So you're more worried about surface contamination, than aerosol?

Is piss an aerosol? Why don't we use the example of a can of pepper spray instead? Which would you prefer?

You were comparing climbing walls to other businesses so I think the contact risks are much more magnified in a climbing setting, the risk from aersols less so. 

are you being willfully silly?

If someone is 20m up and 2 metres 'away' how far between the two people?

If someone is on the same level and 2m away how far between the two people?

Aerosols by their very nature dissapate over distance (hence why we have the two metre rule at all) so someone way above you will give you a lot less of a coating than someone two metres away. gravity has little to do with it.

I have no idea why you're talking about pissing on people- that's you're thing man and you're probably on the wrong forum for that.

They dissipate by falling.  They dont magically vanish, they fall to the floor.

The horizontal distance is significantly more important.  

If you are underneath they will fall on you. 

The pissing example is spot on.  

If a bloke pisses in your direction from 2m most of it will hit the floor for the exact same reason as the aerosols.  

From above it will get you. 

It's not complicated.  

You spray a hose for hip height, the spay covers an area of 1m2.

You spray the same hose from 20m up and the spray covers an area of 20m2.

The hose is putting out the same amount of water.  what scenario do you think the water has a more concentrated effect?

I agree the area covered will be greater- we were talking about viral load.

If simply getting a bit on you meant certainly catching it then what is the point of the 2m rule? It should be 20m.edit-

apparently it is complicated!

Utter nonsense.  That's not how it works.  There is no proportional relationship.  

The virus goes forward from the mouth (force from the cough or breathing or shouting etc) and downwards (gravity)

There will be some scattering but the majority of the virus will be in the same space below.  Gravity is what makes 2m across safe.  It doesn't make 2m below safe.  

What do you mean there's no proportional relationship.

when you try to catch a sneeze in a tissue at the end of your nose, the sneeze area is about 10cm2 (the size of the tissue).  By the time its an arms length away, the area covered would be massively greater. otherwise what would be the point?  As long as you aren't pointing your laser guided sneeze directly at someone it would be OK, right?

Add into this the effect of air movement on its journey down from 20m (which would be slow ) and you're doing to dissipate whatever you've sneezed massively.  Thats not great thing, but it does reduce the overall effect.

edit- lets experiment.  I will sneeze in your face from 2m away and you can give a score from 1-10 of how much you felt on your face.  ill then do the same thing from the upstairs window and you can score how much you feel.  I'll bet you one case of corona the latter scores lower.

cant believe this thread is still going on. dont feed the troll. climbing walls are opening up. check out climbing depot website 

And bubbles, true (though my bubble-mate isn't a climber).

They are preparing to open up, but the Government has to give "indoor leisure facilities and gyms" the go first.  That's the group they'll be in.

There is a hope that this will be in late July, but if the first tranche of reopenings cause a spike it won't be.

God, I do hate it when people cant win a discussion with someone of a different opinion to themselves and they resort to calling them a troll.  I thought we had established now that doing this, shutting down debate, calling people Nazi's for having a different view, taking people to court for jokes just denies good-faith discord, breeds more extremism and results in Populism, Trump and Brexit.

They don't know when they are opening.

Can you underpin that? 

Interesting case from a hairdressers in the States. Two workers had COVID but didn't know. No one (co-workers or customers) contracted the virus.

https://www.springfieldmo.gov/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=6939

At the international meeting last night I put out a request to friends to let the group know how different countries that have walls open are coping.

Nearly 40 responses already from 17 different countries that have walls open. No known cases of new cases. Full spread of responses on face coverings from none needed (eg Sweden) to must be worn at all times (Korea).

New Zealand reporting a massive surge in customers but it is winter there.

I'm not in the groundworks game but I could probably get you a name of someone who can help.

Probably too many variables for relevance, nozzle type, flow rate, flow type etc. Laminar hose flow vs turbulent sneeze explosion. Interesting though. 

To my disliker, you can take it from me that all walls will open next Monday. I clearly don't need to evidence this claim, go fill your boots.

With it being summer, it could be a good time to trial opening. Lower demand gives a greater opportunity to fine tune new systems. Much like with the pubs opening though, don't expect me to be your lab rat. 

Well yes, but the way metaphors work is they roughly encapsulate the issue. Should I have added all other things being equal?!

I just cant believe i'm even having to argue that a sneeze/ hose spray from the top of a 20m tower will spread its spray over a greater area than one held/ a sneeze done at head height. 

Calm your disbelief, the spread and resultant DF I understand. You or I could be anyone, making anything up, this is the Internet after all. 

Like I said, walls open on Monday at 09:00  

Flawless logic, perhaps the government is keen to get the tax collected from pubs flowing in again. The timing is probably linked to the clement weather that summer brings so drinking outside, which is safer in some ways, will be the done think anyway. So in short the government will have a some tax coming in during the summer period, if they'd opened the pubs later in the year the potential tax income will be far less.

Maybe that's the governments logic?

In terms of climbing walls and gyms opening the government could, I suggest, argue that due to the summer weather people don't need to exercise indoors.

I think you underestimate how far blokes can piss. From 2m and 20m up it will be landing on the other side. 

The science behind the 2m rule seems to be that this distance reduces the risk of aerosol transmission to an acceptably low level. This is presumably because the virus dissipates sufficiently and eventually settles on the floor as you say. This is at ground level, so the emission point would be around 1.5m off the floor.

Now what happens if the emission point is say 5m or 10m off the floor? The question is how much further will the virus travel before it settles on the floor. I don't know but suspect it's not as simple as 2x height = 2x horizontal range. The air resistance presumably slows the virus down, same as any object travelling through the air. It will probably travel further if emitted higher but the further it travels, the lower the viral concentration. Besides, it probably doesn't all 'land' at the same rate and time - consider two feathers falling from roughly the same place and height, they will probably land in different places and at different times.

Consider someone with breath smelling of something like garlic or alcohol. You may be able to smell the garlic from 2m away at ground level if they cough or shout at you. You almost certainly won't if they're 5m or 10m above you, even if it's directly above you and they're coughing or shouting in your direction. This suggests that small particles dissipate over a large distance and once they do eventually land on the ground it's in a much lower concentration because it would be over a greater period of time and/or a greater area.

The 'pissing down' example if not a very good analogy because piss is a stream of liquid rather than an aerosol. Even something like piss is going to dissipate over a greater distance - may be you'll be more likely to get hit but it's more likely to be a bit of a splash than a stream. The dissipation in the case of an aerosol  would be far greater. Going to the other extreme, if someone throws a cricket ball from high up, the impact would probably be worse than from ground level as, being a solid, heavy object it won't dissipate at all and instead will gather speed and hit you harder.

Consider also that someone coughing / sneezing / breathing while climbing is generally going to be doing that in the direction of the wall, upwards, downwards or sideways but not backwards (unless they're doing a Johnny Dawes style 360 en route), so the belayer who is going to be generally behind the climber is probably going to be spared the worst of it.

But I agree that this is a potential issue for lead walls. The answer might be to restrict it to household groups / social bubbles but that's virtually impossible to police.

It seems that bouldering walls are easier to manage in this respect as there is no need for people to be near each other and certainly not below each other.

Exactly. I think / hope it will be a matter of a few more weeks, so to some extent this debate is a bit superfluous but it's an interesting discussion.

That's good to hear but, to be fair, how would someone know for sure that they picked up Covid at the wall - and, even if they did, no one might tell the wall. So no *known* cases is an important caveat. I guess if you have someone WHF who does't have any social or work contact except at the wall or when climbing outdoors, it could be reasonable to assume that they picked it up at the wall (or outdoors - but if their outdoors partner doesn't have it then it was probably not there). Thing is, most of the countries where walls have reopened have pretty low infection rates, which is the key point really. It would be interesting to hear about any walls which are open somewhere like the UK or Brazil.

They can't legally open in the UK.  Sweden might be interesting, though?

You can THINK what you like, but you have no evidence to prove that contact risks are worse than aerosol. Neither have I, but it doesn't really matter, a climbing wall is almost the perfect environment for a virus to spread either way.

You're right, because someone sneezing 20 m above you, it's never going to reach the floor is it?

Climbing walls have the same gravity as everywhere else, you do know that.

How much is enough?

Because most of the load hits the floor if both people are at the same level, remember gravity?

I can't see how this is complicated at all, it's simple physics.

Do you think that an aerosol spray will have a consistent trajectory to the floor? Do you think its possible that the 'dose' of corona sneeze will be dissipated on its journey to the earth?

If you don't think that load has any bearing on whether you catch it or not, why are you comlpying with the 2m rule? Any contact, from any distance, with any virus will infect you.

I appreciate your viewpoint that places should stay shut. I respect and understand the reasons behind that view, but I disagree as i think the risk has become manageable and people should be able to make their own minds up on whether they wish to accept this risk. 

I'm getting bored of going around in circles trying to explain something as simple as how a spray will dissipate over a drop/ distance- I think you're being intentionally silly so i'm done responding on this point- Misha above made a better crack at explanation than me.

You don't seem to be showing any effort in debating and understanding the other side- whether you like it or not, people disagree with your assertion that we should all still be locked away at home. Apologies if you are sincerely trying to understand, but it doesn't feel like you've got any interest in understanding.

If you can provide something of interest to read that backs up your point that viral load remains high enough to infect over a distance of 21m, then please post it and I will consider my position.  As it is we have scientists saying a distance of 10-15m between cyclists is fine (and they're travelling at speed, panting, through each others wake).

The cyclists are horizontal. Horizontally most of the stuff has fallen  to the ground because gravity. 

They've detected CV in sewage treatment samples, how much dissipation do you think that had?

It will dissipate, but how much does it need to NOT be a threat? You don't know, that's how much.

Think of the air flow around a cyclist 10-15m apart, outside and compare it do the atmosphere inside a climbing wall!

Then, Trish Greenhalg reminded us: when approaching issues of potential harm and extensive scientific knowledge is lacking... if we aren't sure, adopt the precautionary principle.  Wear a mask.

This is what I'm advocating, not the mask the measures, because no one knows. But physics tell me being underneath someone with covid, isn't the safest of places and it doesn't compare to two people being on the same level.

There is nothing simple about this scenario.  It is insanely complex.  It will depend on the size of the droplets and the direction of the sneeze as well as any air movement in the room.

Relatively large/heavy droplets and sneezing with your nostrils pointed straight down is going to have a completely different spread than very small droplets and sneezing with your head back and your nostrils nearer horizontal.

I still contend that real life incidents of people sneezing mid climb or at the top of a route are very low. Even then people sneezing without covering their mouth and nose while pointing their nostrils directly down and facing away from the wall. 

Then they actually have to have Covid, probably asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic as otherwise they'd be isolating or certainly not at a gym if they were noticeably ill.

Can anyone recall a time they've sneezed mid climb indoors? If so did you sneeze into the void without covering your mouth? Did you shout "take" then sneeze into your hand then continue climbing with mucus on your hands? Did you whip a tissue out of your pocket just in time? Did the sneeze cause you to fall off? Real world I don't think this happens anywhere near enough to be of real concern, unless of course your a 'no level of risk is acceptable' then any discussion is a non-starter and gyms are probably the least of your worries.

This is talking as someone with pretty severe hayfever by the way and am sure I've never sneezed mid climb indoors or outdoors. In times like this if I thought there was a strong chance I'd be sneezing a lot I just wouldn't go.

Last night, on my board, both hands holding shit pinches, managed to stay on. Result. Might add some pepper to my chalk bag as it is good training. 

Speaking as an aerodynamacist, the droplets from a sneeze won't simply fall to the ground.  The largest might but the smaller ones will be more subject to aerodynamic forces.  We call this 'the square cube' law.  As things get bigger, they acquire volume/mass more quickly than surface area.

I've just done a few quick calculations.  If you were to sneeze droplets with a diameter of 20 microns, they would be prevented from falling to the ground if there was a local  upward air flow of just 0.5 m/s (say 1mph).   This is quite likely in an indoor building with people moving around, doors, natural convection etc.

I imagine that slall droplets could disperse quite nicely, as shown in studies of people sneezing in supermarket aisles.

At today's press conference, Johnson said there would be a timetable set out for opening indoor gyms next week. From the guardian:

"Indoor gyms, nail bars, swimming pools are still closed and mass gatherings are still prohibited. He says he wants these restrictions lifted as soon as possible, and task forces are exploring how to do this in a Covid-secure way.

Good progress is being made, he says. Next week, a timetable will be set out for their reopening."

Interesting thanks.