Apr 15 (Kyodo) - By staying outdoors and away from others, surfers should be relatively free from coronavirus concerns while waiting for their waves, but mixed messages about safety are troubling the surfing community as much as the rest of us.
Just as people in the United States, who had been told masks were ineffective, are now instructed to wear them in order to slow the spread of the virus, so surfers who thought they would be safe by keeping their distance at the beach are now hearing otherwise.
More beaches in the United States and Australia are closing to enforce social distancing, with police guarding the shores from surfers who try to defy lockdown rules. In Japan, however, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's state of emergency declaration on April 7 hasn't encouraged surfers to put their boards away.
A surf shop owner in Kanagawa Prefecture said he intends to keep his surf school open, but is cleaning it diligently to limit the spread of the virus.
"I disinfect the space regularly using alcohol solution and keep the number of students to a minimum," he said.
But experts like Kimberly Prather, an atmospheric chemist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, warn surfers the coronavirus can travel fast and far on an ocean breeze.
Prather ignited a firestorm of controversy when she said in a recent Los Angeles Times article the 6-feet (1.8-meter) physical distancing rule doesn't apply at the beach.
"If it's windy, the exhaled virus will travel farther than 6 feet. That rule only applies for still air or indoors. If a surfer is exhaling, the virus in those droplets could remain airborne and infectious for hours," Prather said.
