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Comment by lrossi | Hacker News Reader

Here is a video filmed in London this Christmas: https://youtu.be/Yz7wJZln6Kw

Plenty of people outside. In fact, I would call it lightly crowded, although less than other years. Many people don’t wear masks. It’s not a surprise that transmission has increased.

Nevertheless, London looked absolutely beautiful. Not sure if this was worth the risks though.

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The people in the video seem to just walk around outdoors and not very close to other people. That many people obviously will mean a risk that some of them go into stores, but if there is a reasonably safe thing to do outdoors (like a particularly nice street) it’s natural that this becomes extra popular when people want to find something to do outdoors.

Did they teleport to the outside and socialised only with people within their bubble?

Outdoors, especially in a humid night, is not a magical place where the virus is inactivated right at the mouth of the shedding individual. People being so close, people walking into air that someone recently exhaled—these are big opportunities for infection.

Can you quantify that? I've been under the impression that outdoors transmission was extremely rare and the vast majority of transmission was indoors. I've been meeting with people outdoors for walks thinking that was mostly safe. I've no sources unfortunately.

Wind, UV light from the sun, wearing a mask—these all help, but it’s never 100%. From the research I’ve seen, it’s 20 to 1 safer. But as the virus becomes more transmissible, as well as different outdoor environments, the risk can fluctuate. Be careful. Mental health is important, but so is your physical health. Keep distance on your walks, and choose outdoor areas with a lot of air circulation.

20 to 1 sounds fair - thanks!

Most of them are far closer than I would be comfortable without a mask outside. I only take mine off when there is no one around for like 25 yards, because you never know when someone will cross paths with you and end up very much in your personal space.

You can be sure if people are this lax in a busy commercial district in public, they are just as lax when they gather with their friends and family in private, which is where the bulk of the spread happens. I wonder how many are gathering to watch football matches with booze and friends.

25 yards? Outside? Humans really are bad at evaluating risk, I guess.

But packing tens of thousands of people elbow to elbow outside while wearing a mask is perfectly fine.

Correction. It might be perfectly fine. It all depends on what they are protesting.

Yeah you would be fine at six feet too. But if that person just stopped moving to check their phone, turned around and doubled back my direction and passing me on the narrow sidewalk, all kinds of reasons that they would quickly close in from a safe distance to within six feet of me, that wouldn't be too great. Easier to just throw on the mask sooner than wait till the last minute.

You’d still be spending such a tiny amount of time in close contact that it doesn’t matter. You can even look them in the eye and say a friendly “hello” as you walk by each other.

You could have taken a very similar video in parts of Melbourne during our (successful) lockdown with people sitting at the beach or walking around the parks, it made no difference to the elimination effort. The only major changes I see are far fewer people wearing masks and being nighttime (if UV has any benefit). Outdoor transmission is very low risk.

Obviously it doesn’t look great but I think the experience with the various protests over the summer (despite looking, I think no one found significant increases in cases due to big protest marches in the US) suggests that this is reasonably benign, though maybe it’s worse with the new strain. In particular these people outside where the ventilation is good are not huddled together in bars or restaurants or sitting rooms with their friends/family which is a much more reliable way to spread the virus.

As far as I can remember reading, Covid does not really transmit when outside. It's mainly happening due to people getting together inside.

My very amateur assessment of national and regional Covid trends is that higher rates of spread seem to correspond very highly with "indoors weather" conditions. That's heating season in colder climates, cooling season in warmer ones.

But yes: people gathering, indoors, largely with recirculated air.

For comparison, here's a video filmed on Christmas day.

https://youtu.be/3RlQFy9WaBE

What makes you unsure of the risk was worth it?

Just the fact that it’s not my city and not my risk, so not for me to decide.

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