Letters

Sport and outdoor transmission

Wed Apr 07 2021 - 00:12

Sir, – The news that just 0.1 per cent of cases of Covid are traceable to outdoor activity is shocking ("Outdoor transmission accounts for 0.1 per cent of State's Covid-19 cases", News, April 6th). The Government has closed parks, bathing spots, children's sports training, golf, tennis, rowing, and even fishing which, by its very nature of casting a line with a hook on the end, tends to dictate social distancing. This information has had to be available to those who make these decisions. It is truly shocking that people have been denied access to sports, social meetings and some forms of exercise. A reversal is not only important, it's vital. – Yours, etc,

DAVID CURRAN,

Knocknacarra,

Galway.

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Sir, – I read with interest the article “Outdoor transmission accounts for 0.1 per cent of State’s Covid-19 cases”, which reports that just 1 in 1,000 cases of Covid-19 in this country can be linked to outdoor transmission, and that studies in China and Japan showed the number of cases associated with outdoor transmission were “so small as to be insignificant”.

For some time now we have been promised by Nphet and the Government (if a distinction can actually be drawn between the two in relation to lockdown restrictions) that decisions on a return to safe activities will be “based on data, not dates”.

Presented with this data, both national and international, on outdoor transmission, can we expect an earlier return to relatively safe outdoor activities (tennis, golf, athletics, a socially distanced cup of coffee at a pavement table, etc) or are we still bound by the arbitrary timetable of calendar dates presented last week? – Yours, etc,

MICHAEL

JEFFERS,

Naas,

Co Kildare.

Sir, – There have been 262 cases traced to outdoor activity since March 2020, representing 0.1 per cent of total cases. Yet safe, healthy, socially distanced sports like tennis and golf have been shut down, on the naughty step, for going on six months now, while people’s physical and mental health takes a hammering. It beggars belief. – Yours, etc,

DONAL

GLENNON,

Ashbourne,

Co Meath.