It being understood that the restrictive measures are still necessary and we must all respect them, and that the virus will be defeated above all with vaccines and herd immunity, in view of the warm season, news arrives that can give us some optimism. That the virus circulates less outdoors (and therefore in the summer, when one is more likely to be away from home) was already intuitively known, but now further scientific confirmation has arrived: the Irish Institute Health Protection Surveillance Center has in fact certified that outdoor transmission represents 0,1% of Covid-19 cases, i.e. only 1 out of 1000 infections. In short, meeting in the open air, with the necessary precautions, is much safer than the risk of contagion what happens in closed places where there is little ventilation.
The analysis relates to the cases of Covid in the Republic of Ireland where it was found that, since the beginning of the pandemic, only 262 cases out of over 232 were attributable to outdoor activities; therefore precisely 0,1%. More specifically, in Ireland there have been 42 outbreaks associated with outdoor gatherings of which 21 occurred on construction sites (with 124 cases), 20 during sports and fitness activities where there were 131 cases and 1 was of family member with 7 cases. These proportions have also been confirmed by other international studies, carried out in various countries. For example, a search of 1.245 cases in China found that only three people were infected outdoors, but they were having a conversation without masks. While, according to a University of California review of five global transmission studies, the chances of contracting Covid-19 indoors are 19 times greater than outdoors.
Therefore, if accompanied by adequate risk management (wearing the mask correctly and respecting the distance of at least 1 meter between people, as we have learned for a year now), open places are officially less dangerous than indoors, and even more a lot of. This was an already known circumstance, but it didn't prevent us from being alarmed seeing the images, for example, of the parks taken by storm during the first beautiful sunny days of spring: well, science itself has confirmed that if gatherings are avoided and if protections are worn, even a crowded park can represent an almost zero risk factor.
