Did anyone here get covid outside?

[MerinoFroggie]

Just after hearing of a case where a girl met with her friend to go for a walk and the friend was in the incubation phase of the virus. The friend didn't know she had covid at the time of going for a walk. A few days the girl developed some symptoms and got tested.

I'm curious in learning more. I'm astonished that an infection occurred outside. I don't know any details if they met in a car to go for a drive and a walk or if they stopped for a takeaway or if the stopped at each others houses or if they shared anything together. I don't know any other details.

I'm going to be more cautious going forward for sure. I was meeting up with my partner every week and going for a walk. Now I'm not too sure about doing that. The walking path I take can get very busy and sometimes I like the walk, other times it's just too busy like people stopping for a chat and standing meters apart across from each other and you have no choice but to dive into their stream of breath and start a sprint to maintain the social distancing.

Lower risk but not impossible
www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-55680305

Pretty sure most infections occur indoors in schools, workplaces and homes.

Thanks for the replies. I'm at a loss as to what to do now. I don't live with my partner because of the household restrictions, we meet once a week for a walk and sometimes a takeaway. So far I thought it was safe enough.

I'm weeks away from receiving a vaccine. Will be getting it through my job because its considered a frontline. I'm not in the UK by the way and it's slower in the EU.

My partner lost his job and he feels bored easily. He goes to the grocery shops every day. Sometimes he makes several journeys like to a petrol station for a morning paper then goes shopping.
Also he ignores the household restrictions and visits his nearby siblings. I observed him a few weeks ago when he met someone he knew on the street. There was no social distancing from the pair of them. He could be repeating that in his day to say life of stopping and chatting to others that he knows with no social distancing. I would consider him a risk for contracting the virus.

Yes it is possible to contract the virus outside, but the difference between a jogger running past you for two seconds and spending an hour chatting with a mate as you walk along is huge.

Yes you should make the effort to social distance from passers by when out and about, on the precautionary principle and out of politeness, but there’s no need to get paranoid and angry about their very existence as I sometimes see on here.

Whilst its not impossible to catch covid from outside, the risk is lowered.
However I think the bigger issue, from your update is that your partner is adding more risk to himself (and you, if you meet him, as likely you will not be strictly distancing from each other) by going into other peoples houses, and not minimising contacts.

The message has never been it can’t be caught outside. That’s why I’m surprised at being able y exercise with others, if your are walking and talking you’re unlikely be 2m apart. Never mind stopping for food etc.

I'm glad I'm not the only breath holder. I usually wear a mask but when I don't I ain't breathing until I'm past people.

Is it possible they may have hugged when they met or said goodbye?

The breath-holders I see make me laugh, tbh.
"0.5 seconds within 2m" -- ok, whatevs.
I know, I know. Whatever it takes to keep our sanity in these crazy times.

@IceCreamAndCandyfloss

The message has never been it can’t be caught outside. That’s why I’m surprised at being able y exercise with others, if your are walking and talking you’re unlikely be 2m apart. Never mind stopping for food etc.

Because the risks remain very low, plus the additional benefits of exercise, especially in winter when many women people will not exercise alone outdoors in the dark. The usual adaptions of going to the gym are not avaliable. Exercising in a home permanently inhabited with the rest of the household is not always practical.

Exercising with one other person is my only legal contact with a person beyond my household and a valuable escape mechanism. (Not eligible for bubbles) That release is going a very long way into avoiding a repeat of reaching the point of the far higher risk of sobbing on a friend's sofa which occured 7 months ago when I reached a failure to cope after 3 months of social isolation.

My highest level of risk is shopping in a near empty supermarket. The people I meet to exercise with have households based at home. The risk of us infecting the other from exercising side by side is minimal (not quite non-existent).

The risk of being infected by someone passing is very, very minimal.

So I'll take the risk of going for a run/ walk with a friend over the guarenteed harm of depression and losing fitness.

I don't know about the new variant, but I think the chances of catching it passing someone outside is vanishingly unlikely.

It might be possible if you are with someone for some time and you don't stay more than 2m away from each other.

It's more likely in crowded outdoor areas like outdoor markets and queues for shops. And if you work outside with the same group of people, in close contact.

But I think the chances of it happening in the scenario the OP describes are very very unlikely. Far more likely indoors. I am not convinced by the people who say they've caught it but have never been to shops, washed down all their shopping yet caught it the first time they left the house.

Does breath actually travel in the same way as cigarette smoke? They are different compounds. I am not convinced that just because I can smell something I am inhaling it either. If that were the case, I could catch bovine TB from smelling infected cow dung, or catch something from someone farting in a confined space.

To be honest I am getting fed up about the scaremongering about outdoor transmission. We know that obesity is a very significant risk factor for bad outcomes with covid. Therefore we need people to go outside and exercise and all these threads are very damaging.

Inside or outside; if you're in close proximity to someone who isn't from your household then you should wear a mask etc.

Just wear a mask outside a lot of other countries are choosing to do that .

There HAVE been documented cases of outdoor transmission from earliest days of pandemic, eg 1 occurred during a 10 min distanced conversation outdoors

academic.oup.com/jid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/infdis/jiaa742/6009483

I now wear a mask on the street (as many European cities reccomend), which I started due to the new variant. I obviously dislike this but don't want to risk catching the virus. I go for walks outside but no longer jog in park as too crowded - I exercise at home instead

Safer to distance/wear mask if meeting a friend TBH - easier said than done I know. I don't tend to as meet 1 friend only who WFH & child is at home /no shopping etc. If friend had more exposure I certainly would

There HAVE been documented cases of outdoor transmission from earliest days of pandemic, eg 1 occurred during a 10 min distanced conversation outdoors

I didn't say there hadn't been any, I said it was unlikely. One case isn't many. When parkrun commissioned a study to find out what the likelihood was, they couldn't actually come up with a figure for outdoor transmission. That was pre the new variant though.

The point is what's the bigger risk? Being overweight, catching covid and having a bad outcome, or going out to exercise, losing weight and having a very slight risk of catching covid?

I'm astonished that an infection occurred outside.

For a start, how can you be astonished at that? Also, you then go on to say you don't know if they shared a car, went to get food etc, so what bit of it do you find so surprising?

@MerinoFroggie

Thanks for the replies. I'm at a loss as to what to do now. I don't live with my partner because of the household restrictions, we meet once a week for a walk and sometimes a takeaway. So far I thought it was safe enough.

I'm weeks away from receiving a vaccine. Will be getting it through my job because its considered a frontline. I'm not in the UK by the way and it's slower in the EU.

My partner lost his job and he feels bored easily. He goes to the grocery shops every day. Sometimes he makes several journeys like to a petrol station for a morning paper then goes shopping.
Also he ignores the household restrictions and visits his nearby siblings. I observed him a few weeks ago when he met someone he knew on the street. There was no social distancing from the pair of them. He could be repeating that in his day to say life of stopping and chatting to others that he knows with no social distancing. I would consider him a risk for contracting the virus.

It sounds like you're right MerinoFroggie. You've mentioned several high risk situations there. Maybe wear a mask if you choose to carry on going for the walks with him and avoid the takeaway.

I'm another breath holder too - as well as a turn-my-face-away-from-you-er to minimise the eyes and nose thing.
Luckily, people in my neck of the woods are rarely friendly so no-one gets offended - they just think I'm a local.
I'm not.

I think the risk is negligible in summer but less so now. The air is drier, which allows particles to float longer, and there’s less UV-C to kill the virus at this time of the year.

I think it’s possible, particularly in a high traffic outdoor area (like the seafront path in my town).

@MerinoFroggie

Thanks for the replies. I'm at a loss as to what to do now. I don't live with my partner because of the household restrictions, we meet once a week for a walk and sometimes a takeaway. So far I thought it was safe enough.

I'm weeks away from receiving a vaccine. Will be getting it through my job because its considered a frontline. I'm not in the UK by the way and it's slower in the EU.

My partner lost his job and he feels bored easily. He goes to the grocery shops every day. Sometimes he makes several journeys like to a petrol station for a morning paper then goes shopping.
Also he ignores the household restrictions and visits his nearby siblings. I observed him a few weeks ago when he met someone he knew on the street. There was no social distancing from the pair of them. He could be repeating that in his day to say life of stopping and chatting to others that he knows with no social distancing. I would consider him a risk for contracting the virus.

I think you have a bigger problem.

I'd never partner with anyone as selfish and irresponsible as you describe.