I take my dog for a walk daily. It’s kind of a combo of getting her out of the house, and my outdoor exercise time. Something I’ve noticed though is that everyone is running a lot more, and breathing their maybe-coronavirus-breath in my face. A LOT.
As someone who is inherently paranoid, I wanted to get the facts. Can someone huffing and puffing their way down my street, right past me, make me more susceptible to coronavirus?
Some runners will jog on the road to go around people. But many don’t – and while I pride myself in my social distancing measures, if someone runs up behind me or around a corner and doesn’t bother to distance themselves, I’m getting covered in their moisture-laden breath. Right? Well, I asked Associate Professor Hassan Vally of the Department of Public Health, La Trobe University, for the facts.
“The main route of transmission is through respiratory droplets that are produced when someone coughs or sneezes, so whilst in the current environment I would avoid being breathed on by other people, just heavy breathing is probably NOT going to give you the virus,” he said.
Phew! Except…
However, running and breathing heavily may lead to some droplets being projected, so this is another reason to be careful.
Right. So it’s not GREAT, but it’s also not the same as someone coughing or sneezing in your direction.
But this is probably the most helpful bit of information, at least for me.
People are most infectious when they have symptoms and so one would expect and hope that someone who had symptoms would not be running, both because they wouldn’t feel like running presumably and also because they should not be outside putting others at risk when they have any infection given the environment we are in.
So basically, people going for mammoth runs are less likely to be highly infectious, as they probably aren’t experiencing symptoms. Dunno about you, but I don’t exactly strap on the joggers when I feel like ratshit.
All of this being said, it’s still a good idea to give runners a 1.5m berth (and runners, you do the same for us walkers pls) because, as Professor Vally said, there is still the chance that the heavy breathing of a runner might lead to some droplets being projected.
