It appears the safest place to be for not catching Covid is not cooped up inside, but in the open air.
A Hongkong studies amongst 7324 corona infections across China found that only one of the infected persons contracted the virus outdoors; a 27-year old man who had a conversation with an acquaintance who had just returned from Wuhan.
The vast majority of infections occured inside people's homes, and in public transport.
Or more general, in places where people are in close proximity for extended periods of time.
" the importance of this find is not valued properly by authorities and policy makers" , say the scientists, lead by Li Yuguo of Hongkong University.
"The transmission of respiratory infections like sars-cov-2 is an indoor phenomenon.
Other scientists acknowledge the find.
" You always have to be very careful and check if your selection of data is unbiased" , says Jaap van Dissel, head epidemologist of the Dutch RIVM (the scientific institute that advises the government on the corona outbreak).
"The Hongkong scientist themselves have pointed out that transmission itself is biased towards indoor spread if only because in general, people spend more time indoors than outside. But even so, it is undoubtedly true that the virus will spread much less outdoors in the open than in enclosed areas. The wind will spread it thin and UV light will deactivate the virus."
Professor in clinical virology Louis Kroes: "You have to be careful, the one outdoors is not the other outdoors", referring to roofed in terraces and party tents, "but in the normal outdoor open, good luck trying to spread the virus, you won't succeed. There simply isn't any evidence that repiratory virusses like this one can be transmitted in the open outdoor air, in any way relevant to an epidemic proportion".
Kroes is sceptical about the strict enforcement of the one-and-a-half meter distance rule (the dutch standard, other countries have other distances people should keep between themselves)."
People want clarity and unambiguouty. But we are taking it too far".
For an example, Kroes points out the debates city councils are having now about how to deal with sidewalks that are less than 1.5m wide.
"When I hear that I'm like, do you really have to make an issue out of everything? It would make perfect sense if you would have different standards for outdoor environments".
Still, it all depends on circumstances, all experts agree."Transmission of the virus outdoors cannot be completely ruled out", Yuguo says. "Exposure time is the most important factor. having an animated conversation for hours on a terrace will assist the virus more than a walk in the park".
It's all about situations were transmission can take place for a prolonged period of time", says Kroes."Just passing each other on the street is unimportant for transmission".
Soooo.. I guess the solution for the corona crisis is to close down all indoor jobs and evict everyone from their homes. And everyone lives long and homeless everafter.