Coronavirus and football (soccer): Why mid-day matches are much safer for players
(Coronavirus und Fußball: Warum Spiele zur Mittagszeit für Spieler viel sicherer sind)
Safely resuming sporting events while the coronavirus is spreading is challenging - yet possible - if the science is taken into account. Two main ways the coronavirus can spread among football players is through air-suspended microdroplets (and possibly aerosols), and via contact with contaminated surfaces. Here we estimated virus survival in dried saliva droplets on a football pitch (i.e., on the grass) and on the ball itself, and compared these measures between mid-day and nighttime matches. We find, based on experiments with the enveloped phage Phi6 - a surrogate for SARS-Cov-2 - that while the virus survives reasonably well on both pitch and ball during a nighttime match (~10% survival), virtually no viruses survived the 90-minute duration of a mid-day match on a hot, sunny day. These results, taken together with studies reporting rapid deactivation of coronavirus in aerosols by sunlight, suggest that playing football in mid-day reduces the likelihood of transmission between players, and thus increases players` safety.
© Copyright 2020 Preprints. MDPI. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.
Schlagworte: | Fußball Wettkampf Organisierung Gesundheit Prävention Sportler Krankheit Infektion Virus Klima Temperatur |
---|---|
Notationen: | Biowissenschaften und Sportmedizin Organisationen und Veranstaltungen Spielsportarten |
Tagging: | Coronavirus |
DOI: | 10.20944/preprints202007.0012.v1 |
Veröffentlicht in: | Preprints |
Veröffentlicht: |
2020
|
Heft: | preprint |
Seiten: | 2020070012 |
Dokumentenarten: | Artikel |
Sprache: | Englisch |
Level: | hoch |