Are bubbles a covid risk?

[Beseigedbykillersquirrels]

It's been beautiful here today so we took the DC down to the riverbank for a picnic. DD (2) wanted to take her bubbles and she was blowing them on and off for quite a bit of the two and a half hours we were there. It was busy enough but not packed; there was, at a guess, about 20 other families, all well spread out. Towards the end of the afternoon, a man was walking by and then approached us and said (well, more like shouted) that we shouldn't be blowing covid bubbles all over the place and that one popped near his face so he has now been exposed and will have to take the day off work until he can have a test.
I am fully prepared to be told IWBU - it honestly didn't occur to me that my child blowing bubbles could be a covid risk but I am aware that this man thought it was. Was I being unreasonable in allowing my DC to blow bubbles at the riverbank this afternoon?

If you’re scared of bubbles you should stay i dotes and hide under your sofa. It’s wholly irrational

Why would he take a test unless he had symptoms?
And why would he self isolate unless he had been in close contact with someone with a known case of Covid?

Neither of those apply

@Alconleigh

Quite a few people are just itching not to go back to normal, aren't they? I think Covid must have been the most excitement they've ever had, and they are desperate to prolong it. Bonkers. Don't worry OP, you didn't ruin everyone's afternoon.

You know, I think you've made a very good point there. I've alarmed myself at how quickly I became accustomed to 'the new normal' and find myself watching a film and thinking, oh my God, they're not even social distancing, etc. I think it is a very scary time for some people, perhaps venturing out for the first time in a year, etc, and I do get that. I just personally feel that it wasn't really 'living' life during lockdown and I for one am delighted about a cautious return to some form of normality. I accept that I may have spread covid throughout my town today though so fully expect to be back in local lockdown from 9 o'clock tomorrow morning.

Why would he take a test unless he had symptoms?

Are you serious, @MirandaWest?!

@ThursdayWeld I think you need to calm down. A bubble has burst near him. In the open air.

That’s all.

Are you normally this paranoid?

@MirandaWest

Why would he take a test unless he had symptoms? And why would he self isolate unless he had been in close contact with someone with a known case of Covid?

Neither of those apply

I don't know. I think he is probably just a frightened man who feared the worst? That's me giving him the benefit of doubt. He could've just been a bit of an arse. He came quite close to us (definitely closer than two metres) and he was standing over us as we were sitting/kneeling and was actually spitting so I don't know if he had any right to lecture us about covid safety to be honest. But, he obviously saw a concern/fear in the bubbles so I have to be mindful of that as it honestly hadn't even occurred to me.

I'm not paranoid. I just understand the physics of bubbles. The soap around the bubble does not touch all of the breath inside the bubble. And bubbles travel further than breath does.

As for someone asking why a person without symptoms would take a covid test - have they not noticed that much of the country is doing that once or twice a week?!

@ThursdayWeld You are being paranoid. He has approached the op, he could easily have walked the other way.

He's more like to have his clothes destroyed by the bubbles than catch covid. Having said that yeah having a child blow bubbles with strangers all around for 2 and a half hours when there's an airborne virus about does seem really thoughtless. He could have just moved away though.

@Beseigedbykillersquirrels

I googled “covid blowing soap bubbles”.

I’ve effectively asked the same question you are asking. Is it dangerous? Does he have a point?

I, like you, don’t know the answer. So I asked, outright, whether anyone here did.

If a kid was blowing bubbles near me, I wouldn’t think anything of it. But then If someone around us got annoyed and pointed out that it was a risk, I’d then wonder if he was being weird, or whether he had a point.

It would make me wonder. Pretty much like it’s made you wonder about it. Hence you creating this thread.

Turns out that no one actually knows.

[quote Nicknacky]@ThursdayWeld You are being paranoid. He has approached the op, he could easily have walked the other way.[/quote]
No, I'm not. I am simply explaining physics.

@ThursdayWeld No you aren’t😂

Holy Mother of All Gods.

@Beseigedbykillersquirrels

I am ECV. I have been extremely careful since Feb last last year and tolerated a decent amount of ridicule & abuse on here for being careful - I'm still quarantining (delivered) food shopping (than can be) & washing fridge items that can't be. I still open the post/parcels and then wash my hands. I'm still distancing & mask wearing. I still haven't seen anyone inside, anywhere.

Just to give you some idea of how careful I'm being.

Your toddler blowing bubbles is no risk to anyone. Either they'll blow away and burst in the 'unlimited' fresh air or they'll land on something, burst, get broken down by the soap & air.

Even if it landed on someone there's virtually (if not completely) no risk of the virus surviving, let alone surviving being moved from where it lands, into their mouth.

That bloke is wrong & rude! A lot like some posters.

Let her blow all the god damn bubbles she wants!!

@Definately

He's more like to have his clothes destroyed by the bubbles than catch covid. Having said that yeah having a child blow bubbles with strangers all around for 2 and a half hours when there's an airborne virus about does seem really thoughtless. He could have just moved away though.

He was just walking past. As such, he unfortunately came into the closest contact with the bubbles as we and the other families were rather well spread out. I really wasn't paying that much attention but my daughter was as every time a bubble 'escaped' her managing to pop it she told me and pointed it out. I didn't see any go anywhere near the nearest families/groups on either side of us, but again I wasn't paying really close attention, which I realise was remiss of me. The vast majority of the ones my DD couldn't pop went too high and popped way above our heads, but as I said, I can't guarantee that none went within two metres of the other groups around us.

Oh fgs! No. They are not.

Complete and utter madness.

What an over reaction.

Bubbles are no risk at all. It's not a bubble of spit. It's soapy water that's been blown away.

@ThursdayWeld. what are your qualifications for 'explaining physics'??

@AlmostSummer21

Holy Mother of All Gods.

@Beseigedbykillersquirrels

I am ECV. I have been extremely careful since Feb last last year and tolerated a decent amount of ridicule & abuse on here for being careful - I'm still quarantining (delivered) food shopping (than can be) & washing fridge items that can't be. I still open the post/parcels and then wash my hands. I'm still distancing & mask wearing. I still haven't seen anyone inside, anywhere.

Just to give you some idea of how careful I'm being.

Your toddler blowing bubbles is no risk to anyone. Either they'll blow away and burst in the 'unlimited' fresh air or they'll land on something, burst, get broken down by the soap & air.

Even if it landed on someone there's virtually (if not completely) no risk of the virus surviving, let alone surviving being moved from where it lands, into their mouth.

That bloke is wrong & rude! A lot like some posters.

Let her blow all the god damn bubbles she wants!!

Thank you! I still wash and sanitise my hands after touching shopping/mail, and frequently throughout the day, etc, and wear my mask and distance, etc too. Both my husband and I take twice weekly tests and have both had both vaccines, but of course this man wasn't to know that we are a cautious family, many aren't.

Reminds me of this

@Beseigedbykillersquirrels

but of course this man wasn't to know that we are a cautious family, many aren't

But he doesn't need to know all that to apply a little common fucking sense!!

Even if she has COVID she's not going to pass it on outside, blowing bubbles. She's just not!!

Him standing close & above you, however, IS a risk and HE should be bloody embarrassed

What the fuck am I reading!?

And this

Oh well that's it then, I'm tickets. There is a residential care home just up the road from me - I walk past every day and there is always one resident or another blowing bubbles outside.
I must have walked through cloud upon cloud of Covid bubbles!

Lots of children around where I live blowing bubbles today and this didn’t even cross my mind!

Can't be any worse than all those people vaping in public. That stuff travels far and you can tell when you breathe it in because it smells disgusting