Quote:
Originally Posted by Robert Goodman
Distancing? In the amount of air on a cross country course? ... When you're that wet, no chance of transmitting a respiratory virus. Except on the backstroke, your face is getting washed every stroke. Swimming in marked lanes is as much distancing as they impose at the supermarket ...
|
While I grant you that these restrictions are mostly for show (like King Canute trying to stop the tide), these restrictions can't hurt.
I've attended a lot cross country meets (my son ran in high school and college). The start of a multi-team meets looks like a herd of bison, often with dozens, or even a hundred, runners packed together at the starting line. Runners often draft behind other runners in a very narrow course and could be running through the previous runners exhaled air, and cross country runners are known for constantly spitting (in high school my son's team wore T-shirts warning of such). In races with no timing chips, finishers are "herded" into chutes for proper scoring (while still heavily breathing, catching their breath).
Swimmers don't wear masks as shoppers in a grocery store do. While I'm pretty sure that, while in the water, swimmers would be pretty safe, the problem would be all the milling around on the pool deck (as anyone whose been at an indoor pool knows, ventilation often isn't great) between heats and events, and using the locker rooms to change out of wet suits. Virtual meets also take the bus ride out of the equation.
