Is it really safe for everybody to be out in the garden/exercising daily?

[Hoohum]

I have seen a lot of posts about how people are going to be having BBQS this weekend due to nice weather. My question is, is it really completely safe to do so?

I’m more referring to houses that are situated close together but I don’t really see how high numbers of people out in their gardens eating food is much different to high numbers of people having a picnic in a field (with a 2 metre distance)?

I am aware the virus is not airborne at certain proximities But people are still catching virus even with lockdown.

I also wonder about the daily one hour exercise allowance. My step son has been going out for daily walks and playing in the garden but other than that has been completely isolated from people and has been at home with his mum. However, he has now developed a cold and a cough. Even if this is not the Coronavirus he has obviously picked germs up from somewhere?

Do you think it is completely safe to be leaving the house? I have probably become quite irrational and we do not leave the house at all other than the twice we have needed to shop in 3 weeks.

I sort of think that the daily allowance of exercise has been put in place to throw people a bone and help with overall isolation adherence, rather than it being completely risk free.

If this goes in a while, say like 12 weeks, the nhs wont be helped by more people putting on weight, lacking vitamins, and being unhelathier than they were.

When you exercise everyday, 12 weeks, can really impact your fitness and respiratory health.

Those staying in permanently or refusing (not those who cant) to go shopping, to appear the best at quarantine, that think everyone should live on scraps and go shopping once a month, will be not be getting a varied diet. Those spending no time outside, will be lacking in vitamin D.

The government needs to balance keeping people away from eachother, but not causing the country to get less health or store up a whole host of problems further down the line.

I live in a terrace. Most of us will spend time in the garden, this weekend. But the gardens are long. We all arranged to sit at opposite ends. So my neighbour to my left sits at the top of his, we sit at the bottom, my neighbour to right sits at the top.

If I need to come into my house I would still be more than 2 meters away from them.

I do take my son and dogs for a brisk walk. The dogs would be ok, but what would it do for my sons health to have no sunshine, a crap diet to I can go 14 days without shopping rather than 10 and no exercise.

Ds is into team games. He cant have friends round to play football in the garden. He sits out with us or helps with gardening, but it's not the exercise he needs to keep healthy. A 30-45 min brisk walk at the field where he is running around with the dogs (it's an enclosed private field so dogs can be off lead by permission of the owner) is good for our health.

Things aren't the same but I am not cutting off all our outside time. It's not healthy

Amazed that after spending time on Mumsnet the past few weeks you seriously think we would be defending barbecues involving mixed household en masse.

@CheddarGorgeous I was just thinking I’d like to exercise with a decent gardener 😉😃

@Mohster - where on earth are you getting that people are going to other people's barbecues from? People can have bbqs with just the people they already live with! It's clear you are very anxious about the virus, I'm sure everybody is to a degree but you sound rather intense about spreading your message to everyone.

If I hadn’t left the house for three weeks I’d be climbing the walls. For the love of God and your sanity, go for a walk, OP!

@Mascotte

Screenshots from Janice Turner in the Times today which says it all:

@OhTheRoses your analysis, as others have pointed out is deeply flawed - we do not have all or even enough information to determine the death rate.
We are only testing people who are ill enough to go to hospital.

Even after an ambulance was called (they arrived with no PPE despite being called to a suspected covid case) for my friend's 92 year old mother - she wasn't tested, her vitals were taken - she's in a bad state but they won't take her to hospital.

The approach to preventing spread in frontline care workers is a joke and we are worrying about spreading it via bbq's in the backyard and people taking a second walk in isolated areas?

There is absolutely no evidence that droplets from a cough or sneeze can travel up and over a garden fence/hedge. Maybe if people are standing right next to the fence and angling their cough up and over but that would be a bit weird.

As said already, this is all about minimising risk so we all don't get it at the same time and clog the NHS. At the moment, they don't really know whether once the worse of the crisis is over, it will be gone for good and we will all step away from the fear of catching it, or of course when they develop a vaccin. In the meantime, it's reducing the risk of too many people needing the same hospital treatment and not being able to treat them.

Many people will sadly see their health affected by the impact of the lockdown in others ways and more long term ones. That's the just the way things are, what will save some people will kill them in other ways, but this won't impact as much on the NHS.

It's very possible that your step son got something else that was airborne. Or whilst walking, he sat on a bench, put his hand on it to get up, then later scratched his face before having the chance to wash his hands.

The reality is that there are no ways to prevent catching things, even when staying at home, because of mail, food being delivered etc... and even wiping them could miss a spot. It comes down to risks vs benefits.

When it comes to benefits, I would expect going for a walk at pace is going to be more beneficial than having a barbecue eating crap and fattening food and plenty of alcohol.

Yes, im sure that you will think the same when your one of the 20% - will need ICU care. Put simply 2 people out of 10 and 1-5% will not make it that will rise towards the full 20% when the resources are not available. Many of the 20 % are leaving with organs damaged and respiratory problem for life some are needing ventilators to live. So pick 2 out of 10 of your family and friends to be sentenced to poss death because you want to rely on stats.

Nothing to worry about - and you in the same breath state it will be 14000 in a few weeks. Nos matter when its humans, but hey you want to take your chances and on behalf of those in your family go ahead.

Maybe if people are standing right next to the fence and angling their cough up and over but that would be a bit weird.

There would be an Aibu.

I think 'mild symptoms' is extremely misleading. I believe that just means not admitted to hospital. I am also getting the impression that many of those not admitted to hospital would be in a normal context. We don't have the data to be sure of anything. It is also not true that if you are not in the at risk groups that you are not at risk. Deaths this week have shown us that. It's a frightening time for anyone that starts with a cough, temperature or sore throat. None of us know whether we, our children or wider family will be ok. I think anyone's fears about the virus are completely understandable at the moment.

I too am worried about the MH of people. There is some bat shit crazy stuff on this thread 😂

I sort of think that the daily allowance of exercise has been put in place to throw people a bone and help with overall isolation adherence, rather than it being completely risk free

I sort of think it has been put in place to stop people from being completely silly and carrying on as if nothing is happening at all. Because for everyone of those silly people, there is an equally silly one with no underlying health conditions disinfecting their post and refusing to go in their own back garden.

They're trying to create a balance.

There's no reason why a healthy person shouldn't go for a four-hour bike ride in a reasonably secluded place, should they want to.

Everything in life carries a risk though. Every time you get into a car either as a driver or passenger you risk being injured or killed in a crash. So do you completely avoid ever doing that or do you subconciously assess the risks in order to minimise them each time? I.e. by not drink driving and paying attention to your surroundings (not texting etc).

The 2m distancing is more difficult to accurately apply the more people there are in a place. So yes, it seems if 1000 people could sit exactly 2m away from each other in a field and not touch anything the risk of spreading CV would be very low. In practice would every single person do this, remember to wash their hands and not touch their faces? Almost certainly not.

Whilst I do go for a walk everyday, I've decided to avoid a certain area as there are just too many other people exercising there at the moment. I had a cyclist try to come right up to me and stroke my dog the other day, has he been living under a rock? Going for a walk around my block is easier to avoid others and cross the street if needed. I'll likely have a BBQ this weekend as my neighbours have been respectful of saying hello from a distance. If you live in closer quarters you may need to be a bit more cautious if all the neighbours are likely to be out at the same time.

Not going outside at all for weeks on end is quite likely to severely damage you as well— no exercise and no sunlight will do awful things to your body and your mental health. while there is a tiny coronavirus risk from going outside in a sensible manner, there is a massive risk of not going outside at allif you can!

^
This

Yep. I don't think "pick 2 out of 10 friends and family to die" is particularly helpful on a thread where an OP is questioning the safety of her own garden.

mooboy and others, I am aware the data is flawed and that many many more people may have had this than the figures suggest and have been asymptomatic. It may be hundreds of thousands but if that is the case the percentage people who die from this disease is much lower than feared.

Wondering now what to put on my barbecues tonight and tomorrow. Barbecues in our garden, well away from neighbours, with DH, DS and DD. We have all been wfh for three weeks, having a daily walk and I go to Sainsbury's twice a week (I don't have a walk on those days). Have to go because 4 people home eating three meals a day and we are getting through industrial quantities of food. No deluveries or click & collect available.

Really looking forward to Sainsburys in the next hour or so. All the usual staff are there; you know the ones in contact with the public, hundreds of them daily. They haven't caught it yet and I hope none of them do but that puts it into perspective.

After Sainsbury's today we are going to have a gardening weekend in the fresh air and sunshine and really looking forward to it. No need to worry though, we are unlikely to see or get close to a neighbour because we aren't in particularly close proximity. We got so sick of smelljng neighbours' barbecues in London we moved out a bit . That really was to be avoided.

I think maybe your anxiety is getting the better of you, as it is many people.

Clearly if when In your garden you’re within six feet of your neighbours, then there is a risk and you should move away.

If you’re not going to be within six feet of your neighbours there is no risk.

In fact German scientists now think we have misunderstood the transmission. They are the first country to undertake extensive analysis of transmission and have went into the town that is their Wuhan, they have just started the testing of a thousand homes there, but even in houses with four people infected, they cannot find the virus live on any surface.

They think it cannot be caught in supermarkets, hair dressers etc, unless someone coughs or sneezes directly on you. You cannot get it from a surface unless some one coughs or sneezes on it and you immediately touch it and then touch your face. The risk is infinitesimally small.

They think it is caught from extended close proximity to an infected person, so busy social events or venues, close working environments, spending time at home with someone infected. They think that’s how it’s being transmitted.

They are testing a thousand homes in this town now as no study has been done on how it’s transmitted, hence why we see just isolated reports that often conflict..

I have a very narrow garden, around 2m wide so it's difficult to keep a distance with the neighbours. I have a 3ft fence one side so can see if my neighbour is there but have no idea if the neighbour the other side is out due to the 6ft fence.

I'm still going in the garden though as I'm hardly going for a walk as it's so busy and I need some fresh air. Yes it's a risk, but as a previous poster said, the 6ft fence must give some protection.

What is more worrying is the number of people who will be clogging the supermarkets to buy stuff for their barbecue, putting people who are only doing their essential shopping at risk.

@Mohster. I’ve reported your post as inaccurate scaremongering. Your facts and figures are untrue - here is one example

Airborne spread has not been reported for COVID-19 and it is not believed to be a major driver of transmission based on available evidence. (www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/who-china-joint-mission-on-covid-19-final-report.pdf)

@OhTheRoses I agree with what you’re trying to show. People are right, the government has said the number of infections is probably 10 to 20 times higher. That said, the death rate is being over-reported because people who have died with Covid are being lumped with people who have died from it. I’ve seen some reporting to suggest about a third actually die from Covid. In a normal March in the U.K. we’d expect about 50,000 people to die. In a year in the U.K. we’d expect about 600000 people to die. To understand it properly we’ll have to see how many additional deaths covid results in.
All that said, I agree with social distancing measures, not to protect otherwise healthy individuals, but to ensure we don’t overwhelm our health system for those that need it - for covid and everything else.

People are not catching the virus because they are on lockdown, they caught it before lockdown and just showing symptoms or they caught while out to shop etc not in the garden .

pinksparklycat if your garden is only 2m wide, do you live in a very narrow house?