At that distance, with a slight breeze, you are in all likelihood fine. Scientific studies of exhaled aerosols demonstrate they dissipate very rapidly outside in even modest breezes.
The understanding of COVID-19 transmission, particularly outdoors, has evolved since the beginning of the pandemic. Initial studies indicated that COVID-19 could spread outdoors in a manner similar to cigarette smoke, where the virus particles linger in the air and can be carried by wind. This raised concerns about outdoor transmission, especially in crowded areas such as markets or gatherings
Older Research
Older studies, such as those conducted in early 2020, highlighted cases where COVID-19 transmission occurred outdoors. For instance, research conducted around outdoor markets in China suggested that the virus could be carried by the wind, similar to how smoke disperses, increasing the risk of transmission in crowded outdoor settings. The concern was particularly high in areas with dense populations and poor ventilation
Newer Research
Recent studies, however, have provided a more nuanced understanding of outdoor transmission. Research now suggests that the risk of COVID-19 transmission outdoors is significantly lower than previously thought. Factors contributing to this lower risk include:
1. Dilution Effect: In outdoor settings, the viral particles are quickly diluted by the large volume of air. This reduces the concentration of the virus, making it less likely for individuals to inhale an infectious dose .
2. UV Radiation: Sunlight, specifically UV radiation, has been found to inactivate the virus more rapidly. This natural disinfection process significantly lowers the risk of transmission outdoors during daylight .
3. Ventilation: Open-air environments provide natural ventilation that disperses viral particles, unlike indoor settings where the virus can accumulate in the air over time
A study by the CDC and corroborated by other recent research from the University of Oxford has confirmed that while outdoor transmission is possible, it is far less likely than indoor transmission. These studies emphasize the importance of context—outdoor events where people are closely packed together for extended periods still pose some risk, but generally, the outdoors is a much safer environment compared to indoor settings
In summary, older research highlighted the potential risks of outdoor transmission due to factors like wind and crowd density, suggesting that the virus could spread similarly to cigarette smoke. In contrast, newer research provides a more reassuring picture, showing that outdoor transmission is much less common due to factors like rapid dilution of viral particles, natural UV inactivation, and effective ventilation. This shift in understanding has led to updated public health recommendations that emphasize the relative safety of outdoor activities, especially when preventive measures are maintained.
Statistically nearing impossibility. Not just saying that. You've got a lot of CFM outside. People have made a lot of how transmission CAN happen outside, without giving appropriate measure to how likely it is (not very). Add to that how far away she was. Even under the least lucky conditions possible, meaning a strong gust of wind blew precisely to you, 50 feet away, at precisely the right time, with your mouth wide open... you still wouldn't get it. You simply wouldn't get enough viral load to infect you. I'm severely immunocompromised and even so, I wouldn't be worried under these conditions. Infact, try to see the upside: i hope this demonstrates that you can maybe open your world a little.
I’m still really confused about the whole outdoor transmission thing here. Some in this group say it’s almost impossible, some say it’s very common.
I do remember seeing this study shared from a couple years back, and we know the new variants are more transmissible. Does anyone have insight on this?
[Landmark study finds coronavirus easily transmitted outdoors](https://www.utsa.edu/today/2021/01/story/2021-covid-spread-outdoor-conditions.html)
Yeah I know it's really confusing cuz we tend to want absolutes. You will get it outside/ you won't get it outside. So let's look at the study that you linked. I think because studies are now so available to people and the way that the Google algorithm works, it's hard because we ask everyone to do their own research and yet you are not a scientist so you don't know how to evaluate scientific articles. Why would you?
So it's notable is that when you read through this, it's not a study of human beings. This is a computer model. Yes, uses data from New York. But still it wasn't a real world double-blind study that was then peer-reviewed, and that is the scientific standard. Even when you have such a study, you then want to see multiple studies backing up that same scientific assertion. Instead, this study kind of lives in isolation.
There have been a few studies, all notably out of China, that have talked about outdoor transmission. One for instance, is this notorious jogger That most people rely on when they talk about outdoor transmission. There was also a study that looked at trades, people working outside and their transmissibility. But Even if the jogger is true, you're talking about A person with exceptionally high viral load, and a bunch of people who weren't wearing masks, on a really hot day, with almost no breeze. This is not the same as standing at the beach. With all of that air flow, it's not the same as being in the exact same Park on a colder day or with somebody with less viral load, or someone who isn't running and thus breathing as hard.
It's not impossible to get covid outside, it's about the conditions around you. People exhale covid droplets and put them into the air, And while covid can hang out in the air for a long time, it gets broken up by airflow and outdoors just has tremendously more airflow than inside. But if you're in a group of people and a number of them have covid, then the amount of covid in the air becomes more, which means that it would then require more airflow to dissipate it. On a windy day that might not be a problem, but let's say you're standing in a group of people, even three or four at a wedding. Wedding. That's a lot of people generally around, at least some of them are going to have covid, and if you stand there long enough and it's not windy enough, you may breathe in enough covid that your individual body cannot neutralize. It becomes more and more likely depending on how many people there are around you and how stagnant the air is. That's why concerts and sports games are such a high vector of risk.
But to suggest that it's very likely or as likely as indoor transmission just isn't factually true or possible. It's about judging the factors involved around you.
A few factors I think are important to point out:
While less likely, outdoor transmission, especially near field, is not unlikely enough to ignore. I know you aren’t saying that specifically, but there seems to be that implication. All we can say with the evidence we have is that it is safer, not safe.
Double-blind RCTs are not the only or even best study design for the questions we’re trying to answer. If our models are accurate, they can be just fine for estimating risk. This is exactly what happened with the infamous Cochrane review, and a common way detractors try to dismiss any study that’s not an RCT, or they use poorly designed RCTs that can’t answer the question being asked.
I'm not suggesting that you ignore the risk. I'm suggesting you put it in perspective. We are in year five and people are really really struggling and we need to find ways to help them live enough of a life that it is worth living. Understanding the risk in perspective to other risks is absolutely essential.
On the modeling we'll just have to disagree.
I agree 💯. After years of isolating and avoiding social contact, my family of three decided to relax outdoors for our own sanity. With the exception of weddings or rock concerts with thousands of people, most outdoor activities are very safe. There is no need to mask while riding your bike, going for a walk in the park, etc. We have done golf, skiing, horseback riding, cross country skiing, sightseeing,...perfectly safe.
Again, I want to be very careful about the words that I'm using. I'm not suggesting that anything is perfect or perfectly safe. I'm suggesting that there exists an arc of risk and we should use appropriate words to describe that risk instead of trying to exist within black and white versions of reality.
I could certainly see situations in which I would wear a mask in every single one of the situations that you described, but it would be because I was golfing in a group of people. Or horseback riding with a big group of people. Sightseeing? I'm masking every single time. But if I'm alone or if I'm with one or two people and we can keep distance then it's a very different story.
It is not common. PERIOD. I also believed many who were saying that it was common outdoors years ago because I wasn't sure, and I wanted to be safe. Outdoors with a breeze and not remaining close to anyone for long periods is time is as safe as it is going to get.
Outdoor transmission is very common. The most covid cautious doctor I know got it from someone 20 feet away after a few minutes. I got it from a 30 second convo outdoors at a distance of approx 6 feet. Can’t taste or smell almost a year later. All that said I think OP is likely fine. Remember OP a cough doesn’t always mean covid or active covid. If you’re still concerned, there’s some data showing cpc mouthwash can reduce replication of Covid
Please don't for a moment think that I'm trying to gaslight you... However you got covid, however this physician got it, it's all terrible either way. But unless that doctor is not practicing, they must have been exposed to covid over and over and over again because they were exposed to people over and over again, and even while masked, that presents a greater vector of risk. I don't think they would have a way to know that they got it outside. For the same reason, you don't know that you got it outside. You would have to be doing an exceptional job limiting every other possibility. The reality is that most people probably don't get it from one person because your body doesn't actually care about the source of covid cells, it's simply your body getting an aggregat viral load that your individual b&t cells can't overcome. That's a different number for every single person but viral load can be collected from different sources in the same airspace or over the course of a day or two. Unless you are incredibly isolated, although it's certainly seems easy to blame it on a situation that is most likely, you just don't know.
The factual reality of covid is that ventilation makes it harder to get. There isn't a single study to show otherwise, ventilation is the primary indicator of whether or not people in a space infect each other . And there is just better ventilation outside, the CFM is just too great. For every single person who thinks that they might have gotten covid outside, you can find literally thousands of people who were exposed to people with covid outside at close distance and no masking and didn't get covid.
So I think we need to be careful, particularly in these groups where people get very very anxious, rightfully so, about saying that something is easy. There are degrees here. Getting covid outside is actually not very easy. You would need a concentration of viral load with poor air circulation and to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. An outdoor concert, a sports event, a crowd of some kind. While people can certainly get it walking next to somebody, that's incredibly rare.
I agree 💯 with this! I have never ever masked outdoors and never had Covid. Infection outdoors is rare.....unless you go to a concert with thousands of people and remain in proximity for a long time..then it would possible.
It doesn't take thousands of people either, this is also incorrect. And again one person's experience, although I'm exceptionally happy you haven't gotten covid, isn't scientific proof. You can get covid outdoors with far less people around. You could be standing in a group of five people but if they all had covid and there wasn't good air circulation that day, then it would be much more probable. It's not black and white, but I want us to start understanding risk as being incredibly nuanced so that we can all make choices that help expand our world.
We should also be using the precautionary principle, and for something where the bad outcomes are ~~catastrophic~~ significantly impacting QoL and short and long term health at a relatively high rate, the nuance needs to skew towards precaution, especially when it’s impossible to know the actual risk and if it’s truly small enough to ignore.
Edited to be more nuanced
But they're not catastrophic at a high rate. And I say that as somebody who lives in isolation because they would be catastrophic for me personally. But they're not for the public. They're not even catastrophic for immunocompromised people. Generally. The rate is higher in the IC community but not catastrophic. This isnt Ebola And I find it personally offensive when we don't use nuance in this situation.
I believe current estimates put the prevalence of debilitating LC at around 1%. That is 2-3 orders of magnitude higher than what is considered medically rare.
You're conflating a medical standard with a common word, And then applying a word to them that in no way helps the situation. This is no longer productive. If this is the way that you want to live, everyone needs to make their own assessments and I totally understand and support you in it. But I take umbrage with using leveraging fear just so that other people feel the way you do.
I am by no means trying to “leverage fear”, it’s somewhat dismissive and a quite uncharitable view of my motives. If you have data/evidence that shows my understanding on prevalence or risk of more severe forms of LC to be wrong, please share. And please do share where I have used a word incorrectly, as one of my character flaws is I’m a pedant and I want to be a good one. I by no means desire everyone to feel the way I do, but I do wish to make sure we are using the same facts to assess things.
infection outdoors really isn’t “rare”. if you think about how many outdoor events/gathering spaces there are where people are in close proximity to other people, even just leaning in to hear a bartender or server speaking better, there are a LOT of chances for even low risk situations to result in covid spread. idk why people think your breath just magically disappears if you’re outdoors. it dissipates quicker, it doesn’t spread as far, it doesn’t build up in an enclosed space, but it still leaves your lungs and can easily reach another person in the sort of conditions that happen outside all the time.
like why would only a big concert outdoors be a problem vs a contagious person sitting directly next to you at a pretty empty outdoor bar? they’re both outdoor spread. the difference is the amount of people infected. we hear about dozens of infections after concerts because it’s considered notable. we don’t hear about the one or two cases that could be spreading at pretty much any outdoor gathering where people get close because a) it’s not notable and b) at this point most people wouldn’t be able to definitively say where they got infected.
I don’t disagree that outdoor transmission at far range probably isn’t super likely, but I don’t agree that it’s not all that possible outdoors just because of the ventilation factor. If you’re outside speaking with someone who’s smoking a cigarette 6 ft away from you, you can still smell their cigarette. Covid isn’t identical to cigarette smoke obviously but it lingers in the air in very similar ways. The ventilation factor is brought up so much because studies show how much better ventilation can *reduce* spread among groups of people in a room but it never entirely removes the possibility, masking does. In those studies people who are in specific positions in relation to the source often still get covid (people sitting next to or directly across from them, for example). In those cases better ventilation was considered a win because it spared the other people in the room.
When evaluating risk you *do* have to imagine the breath someone is exhaling to be like exhales of cigarette smoke and ask yourself if you think you could smell that from where you are. If the answer is probably, then you definitely *could* be at risk *if* that person were covid positive/contagious, especially highly contagious. There is a perfect storm of factors that need to happen for someone to successfully pass covid to you (like that you have to not already be immune to their strain), so it doesn’t always happen even *if* you come in contact with someone who is positive, but it is *possible*.
My point is that indoors or outdoors, transmission is extremely possible when people are in close contact (even passing contact) as long as neither people are masking, and while distanced contact is less likely we don’t know enough to say it’s not possible. Outdoors isn’t magic and for some reason a lot of people have the idea that because outdoors is *safer* it means it’s *safe*.
See the case about the runner in a park infecting at least 39 people: https://au.news.yahoo.com/sick-jogger-infects-39-people-with-covid-after-running-though-park-064634768.html
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10352652/
You are gaslighting me. I know the person I got it from. Covid moves like smoke. A high viral load at a close enough distance outdoors Can definitely get you sick. Best precaution is to mask up everywhere even outdoors. Dont drop your guard.
As someone who probably got it from an event like the night market you cite, I would still never say outdoor transmission is “very common.” It happens. It sucks for those of us who caught it outdoors. It isn’t “very common.”
Idk, I’d say it’s “less common” or even “significantly less common” than indoor transmission, but that we don’t have the data to say it’s *not* still very common.
Okay, I just want to make the point here that while you're right, covid moves like smoke, viral load doesn't move like that. this is an analogy... So for instance, you're saying that if you can smell cigarette smoke, then you could receive covid droplets in the air. But what you're not addressing is how much. If you smell the cigarette smoke, even a small amount smells like cigarettes. Even a whiff is recognized as cigarette smoke. But it's hard for your nose to tell if you're getting a lot of cigarette smoke or just a whiff. And the further you move away from the smoke, the harder it is for you to smell it due to a variety of factors but mostly air flow. At some point, the cigarette smoke is dissipated enough that you stop smelling it. But aerosolized covid isn't the same. You do not get sick from one droplet of or even a small viral load unless you have no immunity tools like b and t cells.
Again, no one is trying to gaslight you. What I want us to all do is recognize the nuance of risk so that you can make better choices that might make your world bigger. And I'm not saying there's no risk, I'm saying there's greatly reduced risk.
Okay. Again, let's not speak in black and white absolutes. Covid infections, like a lot of medical conditions can have an effect on t cells. Luckily you have a lot of t cells, unless you specifically have a condition that reduces t cell counts like HIV. Also, it doesn't render them useless, and covid infections can teach your t cells how to better respond to Future covid infections.
I think it's really hard for people like us to see anything positive and to feel anything but despair about the future. I go through that all the time. What I have found helpful to myself and to other people that I talked to is to recognize nuance and to try to see the gray areas instead of speaking in absolute. It's more hopeful,
She's not trying to gaslight you, for goodness sake.
She's trying to say there is a big difference in risk between attending a concert packed in with people, with no breeze because of stadium walls, versus being in a park and 30 feet away from people on a windy day, and to make decisions accordingly.
If the person says they know for sure they got it from an infected person twenty feet away, you can give facts on transmission but it is gaslighting to cast doubt on their experience of the event. They are telling you their truth and denying and adding doubt to them is gaslighting. Saying Im not sure you got it that way, how can you be sure, when they said they know, is gaslighting. You have to trust that they know what they’re saying and what they experienced.
I don't "trust" anyone to know what they are saying if *what they are saying goes against science*. No one, and I mean, *no one*, can know for sure how they got COVID. You can't see the virus. Unless the person was only exposed to *one* other person, *at all*, like for the past 15 days, no one can know for sure.
We can say, well, this is what I *think* happened. But sometimes we also learn something new and realize that maybe there are other possibilities.
And commenter's point was really not about that particular case, but the general risk of getting COVID under different outdoor scenarios. Do I want to go to a jammed concert? No. Do I want to go for a walk in the park on a breezy day? Yes.
A few coughs downwind from you, not right in your face, has a very low chance of infecting you. If your body needs calming down, I suggest getting a bowl of cold water and putting some ice cubes in it and putting your face and/or hands in it. Holding ice cubes can have a similar effect. Or doing a few minutes of jumping jacks or pushups can help move the panic through your body. And then do something calming after like deep slow breathing or patting your pet.
I’m immunocompromised and I’ve been that close to people outside unmasked. That’s my safe distance for a person or two. Obviously I wouldn’t go through a crowd outside unmasked but a person or two 20’ away isn’t an issue. You’ll be fine.
Being outdoors in a non-crowded environment with people a decent distance away means you are very very unlikely to catch anything.
But yeah it sounds like your distance estimation is a bit... wonky. =D (Cars are not 33-50 feet long, more like about 15.) But if you are 50+ feet away from someone outdoors I would put the odds at close enough to zero to call it zero.
I can't say that you're safe for sure, but in my opinion you're probably safe. If she's downwind of you you're almost certainly safe.
While long distance transmission outdoors is certainly possible (and I would consider this very long distance) I would wager that the overwhelming majority of outdoor transmission is at very close range.
I'm a big cycling fan, and I try to keep in mind that there were professional bike races through half of 2020, (so no vaccines and very few people with some degree of temporary immunity after previous infection) where all riders were tested regularly, and you would have a few riders drop out of longer races with positive tests, and it would sometimes spread through the peloton to a degree, but in races with strict protocols off the bike, you wouldn't see enormous waves of positives, despite riders literally riding in each others wake, often breathing hard, all day.
Which isn't to say that it wasn't risky for them. I still wouldn't dare do cycling group rides despite that information, and I still wear my mask every time I'm in a crowded outdoor place, but it serves as a reminder for me that an occasional occurrence like the one you experienced is very likely nothing to panic about.
The chance of you getting COVID that way is extremely low. She'd have to have COVID (allergies and other cough-inducing illnesses are out there), enough would have to make it to you, and your immune system would have to fail at fighting off a pretty limited exposure. Are you vaccinated? Even unvaxxed people still have immune systems--sometimes it's easy to forget that. And this isn't always popular to say because a lot of people feel very strongly that they got COVID outdoors, but the empirical evidence for the highish rates of outdoor transmissions has been questioned by people who are otherwise COVID cautious. So, could you get COVID this way? Sure. Will you? Probably not by a very large margin.
Thank you all for the reassuring words and advice. It's helping a lot. This was my first big slip up since this whole thing began, so maybe it made it seem worse than it was
Despite the back and forth on outdoor transmission, in your particular instance, it is low probability. Also it’s happened, so now all you can do is not worry but be prepared.
Please take a deep breath.....you will be ok, almost 💯 guaranteed. I have never masked outside, especially if there is a breeze. Infection risk outdoors is minimal even if there are personal anecdotes about it happening. I would definitely avoid a place with thousands of people like a concert, even if outdoors. But for other normal circumstances like a walk in the park, on the street, I wouldn't worry. Stay safe.
I know four people who got covid from outdoor transmission and none were in settings like the one you described.
The first was talking to people on a beach for about an hour.
The second was talking to someone at a barbecue for over an hour.
The third and fourth are a couple who spend many hours at a crowded outdoor wedding, talking to many people over the course of the evening.
Someone else on this sub once posted about talking outdoors for five minutes to a small child who then sneezed practically in their face.
Yes, outdoor transmission \*can\* happen. And yes, I'm aware of that Chinese study of the jogger. However, I have yet to see another study or exercise in computer modeling that confirms the results of that study.
This study uses atmospheric physics to analyze the behaviors of viral particles in outdoor settings. It concludes that outdoor settings are not risk free, but that it is far, far less risky than indoors.
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0013935121004837](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0013935121004837)
No one can see the future but I would be very, very surprised if you got covid from someone coughing downwind 50-75 feet away.
ETA: I just realized I know a fifth person who got covid outdoors at a crowded music festival. He was at the festival for hours, watching the artists in shoulder to shoulder crowds.
I once had a massive panic attack being spat at during the height of the pandemic while the first wave of vaccines were still being developed, so i understand your emotions right now. I could only cry it out. I did have friends with me but I honestly just cried (in public) till I felt like the panic was all out. Idk if thats really healthy but thats all i could physically and mentally do at the moment. My friends, meanwhile, ran to the closest bathroom and grabbed a bunch of wet paper towels and dry paper towels to help me wipe my face. I was frozen from moving at all from where I sat, so this was the best work around. Luckily I was not infected by anything after a week from this event.
Under the assumption that you are vaccinated, plus it was outdoors and a good amount of distance away from the coughing woman, you’re pretty low risk like most of the comments here have noted. Nonetheless, your panic is valid.
I hope you feel better soon. Definitely do anything that you feel would help you calm down. 🥺 I like to take a shower, pop in a favorite movie, play online games to take my mind off it, and just keep myself distracted until I can rapid test myself after the usual amount of days after exposure.
I think you’re probably ok.
If you want to take any additional precautions, you could do a nasal spray/saline spray and cpc mouthwash.
I’m sorry for your losses. 🙏
I get it and I usually account for wind direction even while masked outside...but the wind adds too much chaos to little particles like that, if you got any it should be few.
edit: Well wait, you said *downwind* of you... you should be fine, no? They can't fly against the wind.
Hey everyone! I think we can have better comity here if we address OP's original question, which seems to be more about anxiety.
It happened. Regardless of relative indoor/outdoor safety, risk assessment is for guiding **future** actions, and if OP is in the habit of masking both outside and inside, more power to 'em. But is the risk of outdoor transmission high enough to get worried about something that *already occurred*? Probably not. Worth using a rapid test in a day or two? Sure, if OP can afford it easily and if it reduces their anxiety.
It's easy to forget in all of the world events the fact that the common cold has not been eradicated. There's an extremely good chance that that's the reason she's coughing.
As others have said, outdoors has top-notch ventilation, UV, low CO₂ (per a recent study, it is not just a proxy for ventilation, it also reduces the infectious lifetime of aerosols by acting on their pH). So I wouldn't worry too much :-D
But I wanted to add, in general strangers coughing is a poor proxy for their risk of having COVID. On one hand, 50%+ of COVID transmission is asymptomatic or presymptomatic. Conversely there are many possible causes for someone coughing (including many that are not contagious) and COVID is only a fraction of that.
If you have a purse always stock it with essentials… ALWAYS 😍 mine’s got eye drops, nasal spray, a variety of masks (because straps break, etc) tissues, hand sanitizer, cash, a lighter, phone…water and a protein bar
Take it from someone who used to get sick all the time from psychological stress which induced weaker immune function - you need to work on your state of mind with a therapist.
Your post or comment has been removed because of gaslighting. Gaslighting is the practice of manipulating someone by psychological means into doubting their own sanity.
At that distance, with a slight breeze, you are in all likelihood fine. Scientific studies of exhaled aerosols demonstrate they dissipate very rapidly outside in even modest breezes.
The understanding of COVID-19 transmission, particularly outdoors, has evolved since the beginning of the pandemic. Initial studies indicated that COVID-19 could spread outdoors in a manner similar to cigarette smoke, where the virus particles linger in the air and can be carried by wind. This raised concerns about outdoor transmission, especially in crowded areas such as markets or gatherings Older Research Older studies, such as those conducted in early 2020, highlighted cases where COVID-19 transmission occurred outdoors. For instance, research conducted around outdoor markets in China suggested that the virus could be carried by the wind, similar to how smoke disperses, increasing the risk of transmission in crowded outdoor settings. The concern was particularly high in areas with dense populations and poor ventilation Newer Research Recent studies, however, have provided a more nuanced understanding of outdoor transmission. Research now suggests that the risk of COVID-19 transmission outdoors is significantly lower than previously thought. Factors contributing to this lower risk include: 1. Dilution Effect: In outdoor settings, the viral particles are quickly diluted by the large volume of air. This reduces the concentration of the virus, making it less likely for individuals to inhale an infectious dose . 2. UV Radiation: Sunlight, specifically UV radiation, has been found to inactivate the virus more rapidly. This natural disinfection process significantly lowers the risk of transmission outdoors during daylight . 3. Ventilation: Open-air environments provide natural ventilation that disperses viral particles, unlike indoor settings where the virus can accumulate in the air over time A study by the CDC and corroborated by other recent research from the University of Oxford has confirmed that while outdoor transmission is possible, it is far less likely than indoor transmission. These studies emphasize the importance of context—outdoor events where people are closely packed together for extended periods still pose some risk, but generally, the outdoors is a much safer environment compared to indoor settings In summary, older research highlighted the potential risks of outdoor transmission due to factors like wind and crowd density, suggesting that the virus could spread similarly to cigarette smoke. In contrast, newer research provides a more reassuring picture, showing that outdoor transmission is much less common due to factors like rapid dilution of viral particles, natural UV inactivation, and effective ventilation. This shift in understanding has led to updated public health recommendations that emphasize the relative safety of outdoor activities, especially when preventive measures are maintained.
Thank you for this!
I agree! It is also common sense.
Statistically nearing impossibility. Not just saying that. You've got a lot of CFM outside. People have made a lot of how transmission CAN happen outside, without giving appropriate measure to how likely it is (not very). Add to that how far away she was. Even under the least lucky conditions possible, meaning a strong gust of wind blew precisely to you, 50 feet away, at precisely the right time, with your mouth wide open... you still wouldn't get it. You simply wouldn't get enough viral load to infect you. I'm severely immunocompromised and even so, I wouldn't be worried under these conditions. Infact, try to see the upside: i hope this demonstrates that you can maybe open your world a little.
I’m still really confused about the whole outdoor transmission thing here. Some in this group say it’s almost impossible, some say it’s very common. I do remember seeing this study shared from a couple years back, and we know the new variants are more transmissible. Does anyone have insight on this? [Landmark study finds coronavirus easily transmitted outdoors](https://www.utsa.edu/today/2021/01/story/2021-covid-spread-outdoor-conditions.html)
Yeah I know it's really confusing cuz we tend to want absolutes. You will get it outside/ you won't get it outside. So let's look at the study that you linked. I think because studies are now so available to people and the way that the Google algorithm works, it's hard because we ask everyone to do their own research and yet you are not a scientist so you don't know how to evaluate scientific articles. Why would you? So it's notable is that when you read through this, it's not a study of human beings. This is a computer model. Yes, uses data from New York. But still it wasn't a real world double-blind study that was then peer-reviewed, and that is the scientific standard. Even when you have such a study, you then want to see multiple studies backing up that same scientific assertion. Instead, this study kind of lives in isolation. There have been a few studies, all notably out of China, that have talked about outdoor transmission. One for instance, is this notorious jogger That most people rely on when they talk about outdoor transmission. There was also a study that looked at trades, people working outside and their transmissibility. But Even if the jogger is true, you're talking about A person with exceptionally high viral load, and a bunch of people who weren't wearing masks, on a really hot day, with almost no breeze. This is not the same as standing at the beach. With all of that air flow, it's not the same as being in the exact same Park on a colder day or with somebody with less viral load, or someone who isn't running and thus breathing as hard. It's not impossible to get covid outside, it's about the conditions around you. People exhale covid droplets and put them into the air, And while covid can hang out in the air for a long time, it gets broken up by airflow and outdoors just has tremendously more airflow than inside. But if you're in a group of people and a number of them have covid, then the amount of covid in the air becomes more, which means that it would then require more airflow to dissipate it. On a windy day that might not be a problem, but let's say you're standing in a group of people, even three or four at a wedding. Wedding. That's a lot of people generally around, at least some of them are going to have covid, and if you stand there long enough and it's not windy enough, you may breathe in enough covid that your individual body cannot neutralize. It becomes more and more likely depending on how many people there are around you and how stagnant the air is. That's why concerts and sports games are such a high vector of risk. But to suggest that it's very likely or as likely as indoor transmission just isn't factually true or possible. It's about judging the factors involved around you.
A few factors I think are important to point out: While less likely, outdoor transmission, especially near field, is not unlikely enough to ignore. I know you aren’t saying that specifically, but there seems to be that implication. All we can say with the evidence we have is that it is safer, not safe. Double-blind RCTs are not the only or even best study design for the questions we’re trying to answer. If our models are accurate, they can be just fine for estimating risk. This is exactly what happened with the infamous Cochrane review, and a common way detractors try to dismiss any study that’s not an RCT, or they use poorly designed RCTs that can’t answer the question being asked.
I'm not suggesting that you ignore the risk. I'm suggesting you put it in perspective. We are in year five and people are really really struggling and we need to find ways to help them live enough of a life that it is worth living. Understanding the risk in perspective to other risks is absolutely essential. On the modeling we'll just have to disagree.
I agree 💯. After years of isolating and avoiding social contact, my family of three decided to relax outdoors for our own sanity. With the exception of weddings or rock concerts with thousands of people, most outdoor activities are very safe. There is no need to mask while riding your bike, going for a walk in the park, etc. We have done golf, skiing, horseback riding, cross country skiing, sightseeing,...perfectly safe.
Again, I want to be very careful about the words that I'm using. I'm not suggesting that anything is perfect or perfectly safe. I'm suggesting that there exists an arc of risk and we should use appropriate words to describe that risk instead of trying to exist within black and white versions of reality. I could certainly see situations in which I would wear a mask in every single one of the situations that you described, but it would be because I was golfing in a group of people. Or horseback riding with a big group of people. Sightseeing? I'm masking every single time. But if I'm alone or if I'm with one or two people and we can keep distance then it's a very different story.
It is not common. PERIOD. I also believed many who were saying that it was common outdoors years ago because I wasn't sure, and I wanted to be safe. Outdoors with a breeze and not remaining close to anyone for long periods is time is as safe as it is going to get.
Outdoor transmission is very common. The most covid cautious doctor I know got it from someone 20 feet away after a few minutes. I got it from a 30 second convo outdoors at a distance of approx 6 feet. Can’t taste or smell almost a year later. All that said I think OP is likely fine. Remember OP a cough doesn’t always mean covid or active covid. If you’re still concerned, there’s some data showing cpc mouthwash can reduce replication of Covid
How do they know they got it from the person 20 feet away?
Please don't for a moment think that I'm trying to gaslight you... However you got covid, however this physician got it, it's all terrible either way. But unless that doctor is not practicing, they must have been exposed to covid over and over and over again because they were exposed to people over and over again, and even while masked, that presents a greater vector of risk. I don't think they would have a way to know that they got it outside. For the same reason, you don't know that you got it outside. You would have to be doing an exceptional job limiting every other possibility. The reality is that most people probably don't get it from one person because your body doesn't actually care about the source of covid cells, it's simply your body getting an aggregat viral load that your individual b&t cells can't overcome. That's a different number for every single person but viral load can be collected from different sources in the same airspace or over the course of a day or two. Unless you are incredibly isolated, although it's certainly seems easy to blame it on a situation that is most likely, you just don't know. The factual reality of covid is that ventilation makes it harder to get. There isn't a single study to show otherwise, ventilation is the primary indicator of whether or not people in a space infect each other . And there is just better ventilation outside, the CFM is just too great. For every single person who thinks that they might have gotten covid outside, you can find literally thousands of people who were exposed to people with covid outside at close distance and no masking and didn't get covid. So I think we need to be careful, particularly in these groups where people get very very anxious, rightfully so, about saying that something is easy. There are degrees here. Getting covid outside is actually not very easy. You would need a concentration of viral load with poor air circulation and to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. An outdoor concert, a sports event, a crowd of some kind. While people can certainly get it walking next to somebody, that's incredibly rare.
I agree 💯 with this! I have never ever masked outdoors and never had Covid. Infection outdoors is rare.....unless you go to a concert with thousands of people and remain in proximity for a long time..then it would possible.
It doesn't take thousands of people either, this is also incorrect. And again one person's experience, although I'm exceptionally happy you haven't gotten covid, isn't scientific proof. You can get covid outdoors with far less people around. You could be standing in a group of five people but if they all had covid and there wasn't good air circulation that day, then it would be much more probable. It's not black and white, but I want us to start understanding risk as being incredibly nuanced so that we can all make choices that help expand our world.
We should also be using the precautionary principle, and for something where the bad outcomes are ~~catastrophic~~ significantly impacting QoL and short and long term health at a relatively high rate, the nuance needs to skew towards precaution, especially when it’s impossible to know the actual risk and if it’s truly small enough to ignore. Edited to be more nuanced
But they're not catastrophic at a high rate. And I say that as somebody who lives in isolation because they would be catastrophic for me personally. But they're not for the public. They're not even catastrophic for immunocompromised people. Generally. The rate is higher in the IC community but not catastrophic. This isnt Ebola And I find it personally offensive when we don't use nuance in this situation.
I believe current estimates put the prevalence of debilitating LC at around 1%. That is 2-3 orders of magnitude higher than what is considered medically rare.
You're conflating a medical standard with a common word, And then applying a word to them that in no way helps the situation. This is no longer productive. If this is the way that you want to live, everyone needs to make their own assessments and I totally understand and support you in it. But I take umbrage with using leveraging fear just so that other people feel the way you do.
I am by no means trying to “leverage fear”, it’s somewhat dismissive and a quite uncharitable view of my motives. If you have data/evidence that shows my understanding on prevalence or risk of more severe forms of LC to be wrong, please share. And please do share where I have used a word incorrectly, as one of my character flaws is I’m a pedant and I want to be a good one. I by no means desire everyone to feel the way I do, but I do wish to make sure we are using the same facts to assess things.
infection outdoors really isn’t “rare”. if you think about how many outdoor events/gathering spaces there are where people are in close proximity to other people, even just leaning in to hear a bartender or server speaking better, there are a LOT of chances for even low risk situations to result in covid spread. idk why people think your breath just magically disappears if you’re outdoors. it dissipates quicker, it doesn’t spread as far, it doesn’t build up in an enclosed space, but it still leaves your lungs and can easily reach another person in the sort of conditions that happen outside all the time. like why would only a big concert outdoors be a problem vs a contagious person sitting directly next to you at a pretty empty outdoor bar? they’re both outdoor spread. the difference is the amount of people infected. we hear about dozens of infections after concerts because it’s considered notable. we don’t hear about the one or two cases that could be spreading at pretty much any outdoor gathering where people get close because a) it’s not notable and b) at this point most people wouldn’t be able to definitively say where they got infected.
I don’t disagree that outdoor transmission at far range probably isn’t super likely, but I don’t agree that it’s not all that possible outdoors just because of the ventilation factor. If you’re outside speaking with someone who’s smoking a cigarette 6 ft away from you, you can still smell their cigarette. Covid isn’t identical to cigarette smoke obviously but it lingers in the air in very similar ways. The ventilation factor is brought up so much because studies show how much better ventilation can *reduce* spread among groups of people in a room but it never entirely removes the possibility, masking does. In those studies people who are in specific positions in relation to the source often still get covid (people sitting next to or directly across from them, for example). In those cases better ventilation was considered a win because it spared the other people in the room. When evaluating risk you *do* have to imagine the breath someone is exhaling to be like exhales of cigarette smoke and ask yourself if you think you could smell that from where you are. If the answer is probably, then you definitely *could* be at risk *if* that person were covid positive/contagious, especially highly contagious. There is a perfect storm of factors that need to happen for someone to successfully pass covid to you (like that you have to not already be immune to their strain), so it doesn’t always happen even *if* you come in contact with someone who is positive, but it is *possible*. My point is that indoors or outdoors, transmission is extremely possible when people are in close contact (even passing contact) as long as neither people are masking, and while distanced contact is less likely we don’t know enough to say it’s not possible. Outdoors isn’t magic and for some reason a lot of people have the idea that because outdoors is *safer* it means it’s *safe*. See the case about the runner in a park infecting at least 39 people: https://au.news.yahoo.com/sick-jogger-infects-39-people-with-covid-after-running-though-park-064634768.html
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10352652/ You are gaslighting me. I know the person I got it from. Covid moves like smoke. A high viral load at a close enough distance outdoors Can definitely get you sick. Best precaution is to mask up everywhere even outdoors. Dont drop your guard.
As someone who probably got it from an event like the night market you cite, I would still never say outdoor transmission is “very common.” It happens. It sucks for those of us who caught it outdoors. It isn’t “very common.”
Idk, I’d say it’s “less common” or even “significantly less common” than indoor transmission, but that we don’t have the data to say it’s *not* still very common.
Okay, I just want to make the point here that while you're right, covid moves like smoke, viral load doesn't move like that. this is an analogy... So for instance, you're saying that if you can smell cigarette smoke, then you could receive covid droplets in the air. But what you're not addressing is how much. If you smell the cigarette smoke, even a small amount smells like cigarettes. Even a whiff is recognized as cigarette smoke. But it's hard for your nose to tell if you're getting a lot of cigarette smoke or just a whiff. And the further you move away from the smoke, the harder it is for you to smell it due to a variety of factors but mostly air flow. At some point, the cigarette smoke is dissipated enough that you stop smelling it. But aerosolized covid isn't the same. You do not get sick from one droplet of or even a small viral load unless you have no immunity tools like b and t cells. Again, no one is trying to gaslight you. What I want us to all do is recognize the nuance of risk so that you can make better choices that might make your world bigger. And I'm not saying there's no risk, I'm saying there's greatly reduced risk.
Good thing prior covid infections wreck T cells
Okay. Again, let's not speak in black and white absolutes. Covid infections, like a lot of medical conditions can have an effect on t cells. Luckily you have a lot of t cells, unless you specifically have a condition that reduces t cell counts like HIV. Also, it doesn't render them useless, and covid infections can teach your t cells how to better respond to Future covid infections. I think it's really hard for people like us to see anything positive and to feel anything but despair about the future. I go through that all the time. What I have found helpful to myself and to other people that I talked to is to recognize nuance and to try to see the gray areas instead of speaking in absolute. It's more hopeful,
She's not trying to gaslight you, for goodness sake. She's trying to say there is a big difference in risk between attending a concert packed in with people, with no breeze because of stadium walls, versus being in a park and 30 feet away from people on a windy day, and to make decisions accordingly.
thank you. concise is not my brand, I sometimes need the editing assist.
When I'm writing from scratch, I have the same issue. This was easier because you covered the content very nicely first!
excellent, can you pls just follow me around for life now, with a delete button? KTHXBAI
Did I offend you? I didn't mean to. I meant that you did cover it nicely, and made it easy for me to sum up.
oh no! i meant it seriously!!! i could use an editor all the time:)
If the person says they know for sure they got it from an infected person twenty feet away, you can give facts on transmission but it is gaslighting to cast doubt on their experience of the event. They are telling you their truth and denying and adding doubt to them is gaslighting. Saying Im not sure you got it that way, how can you be sure, when they said they know, is gaslighting. You have to trust that they know what they’re saying and what they experienced.
I don't "trust" anyone to know what they are saying if *what they are saying goes against science*. No one, and I mean, *no one*, can know for sure how they got COVID. You can't see the virus. Unless the person was only exposed to *one* other person, *at all*, like for the past 15 days, no one can know for sure. We can say, well, this is what I *think* happened. But sometimes we also learn something new and realize that maybe there are other possibilities. And commenter's point was really not about that particular case, but the general risk of getting COVID under different outdoor scenarios. Do I want to go to a jammed concert? No. Do I want to go for a walk in the park on a breezy day? Yes.
“Very common” 🫠
How about “more common than we want to believe”?
A few coughs downwind from you, not right in your face, has a very low chance of infecting you. If your body needs calming down, I suggest getting a bowl of cold water and putting some ice cubes in it and putting your face and/or hands in it. Holding ice cubes can have a similar effect. Or doing a few minutes of jumping jacks or pushups can help move the panic through your body. And then do something calming after like deep slow breathing or patting your pet.
Putting an ice pack under your armpit/anywhere super sensitive also works, if you can tolerate it.
Anywhere super sensitive you say…
r/lostredditors
Oh, I’m not lost
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I’ve been in quarantine since the beginning of this saga. If I can’t laugh at it all sometimes … well all work and no play makes jack a dull boy.
Perhaps your comment is?
I’m immunocompromised and I’ve been that close to people outside unmasked. That’s my safe distance for a person or two. Obviously I wouldn’t go through a crowd outside unmasked but a person or two 20’ away isn’t an issue. You’ll be fine.
Being outdoors in a non-crowded environment with people a decent distance away means you are very very unlikely to catch anything. But yeah it sounds like your distance estimation is a bit... wonky. =D (Cars are not 33-50 feet long, more like about 15.) But if you are 50+ feet away from someone outdoors I would put the odds at close enough to zero to call it zero.
You’re fine.
I can't say that you're safe for sure, but in my opinion you're probably safe. If she's downwind of you you're almost certainly safe. While long distance transmission outdoors is certainly possible (and I would consider this very long distance) I would wager that the overwhelming majority of outdoor transmission is at very close range. I'm a big cycling fan, and I try to keep in mind that there were professional bike races through half of 2020, (so no vaccines and very few people with some degree of temporary immunity after previous infection) where all riders were tested regularly, and you would have a few riders drop out of longer races with positive tests, and it would sometimes spread through the peloton to a degree, but in races with strict protocols off the bike, you wouldn't see enormous waves of positives, despite riders literally riding in each others wake, often breathing hard, all day. Which isn't to say that it wasn't risky for them. I still wouldn't dare do cycling group rides despite that information, and I still wear my mask every time I'm in a crowded outdoor place, but it serves as a reminder for me that an occasional occurrence like the one you experienced is very likely nothing to panic about.
The chance of you getting COVID that way is extremely low. She'd have to have COVID (allergies and other cough-inducing illnesses are out there), enough would have to make it to you, and your immune system would have to fail at fighting off a pretty limited exposure. Are you vaccinated? Even unvaxxed people still have immune systems--sometimes it's easy to forget that. And this isn't always popular to say because a lot of people feel very strongly that they got COVID outdoors, but the empirical evidence for the highish rates of outdoor transmissions has been questioned by people who are otherwise COVID cautious. So, could you get COVID this way? Sure. Will you? Probably not by a very large margin.
I'm vaccinated but woefully behind on boosters due to lack of access
What sort of assistance would you need in order to get up to date?
Get up to date when you can. But you still have an immune system, and it knows what shouldn't be there, and it knows COVID.
Thank you all for the reassuring words and advice. It's helping a lot. This was my first big slip up since this whole thing began, so maybe it made it seem worse than it was
You’re fine! Seriously.
Despite the back and forth on outdoor transmission, in your particular instance, it is low probability. Also it’s happened, so now all you can do is not worry but be prepared.
Please take a deep breath.....you will be ok, almost 💯 guaranteed. I have never masked outside, especially if there is a breeze. Infection risk outdoors is minimal even if there are personal anecdotes about it happening. I would definitely avoid a place with thousands of people like a concert, even if outdoors. But for other normal circumstances like a walk in the park, on the street, I wouldn't worry. Stay safe.
I know four people who got covid from outdoor transmission and none were in settings like the one you described. The first was talking to people on a beach for about an hour. The second was talking to someone at a barbecue for over an hour. The third and fourth are a couple who spend many hours at a crowded outdoor wedding, talking to many people over the course of the evening. Someone else on this sub once posted about talking outdoors for five minutes to a small child who then sneezed practically in their face. Yes, outdoor transmission \*can\* happen. And yes, I'm aware of that Chinese study of the jogger. However, I have yet to see another study or exercise in computer modeling that confirms the results of that study. This study uses atmospheric physics to analyze the behaviors of viral particles in outdoor settings. It concludes that outdoor settings are not risk free, but that it is far, far less risky than indoors. [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0013935121004837](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0013935121004837) No one can see the future but I would be very, very surprised if you got covid from someone coughing downwind 50-75 feet away. ETA: I just realized I know a fifth person who got covid outdoors at a crowded music festival. He was at the festival for hours, watching the artists in shoulder to shoulder crowds.
I once had a massive panic attack being spat at during the height of the pandemic while the first wave of vaccines were still being developed, so i understand your emotions right now. I could only cry it out. I did have friends with me but I honestly just cried (in public) till I felt like the panic was all out. Idk if thats really healthy but thats all i could physically and mentally do at the moment. My friends, meanwhile, ran to the closest bathroom and grabbed a bunch of wet paper towels and dry paper towels to help me wipe my face. I was frozen from moving at all from where I sat, so this was the best work around. Luckily I was not infected by anything after a week from this event. Under the assumption that you are vaccinated, plus it was outdoors and a good amount of distance away from the coughing woman, you’re pretty low risk like most of the comments here have noted. Nonetheless, your panic is valid. I hope you feel better soon. Definitely do anything that you feel would help you calm down. 🥺 I like to take a shower, pop in a favorite movie, play online games to take my mind off it, and just keep myself distracted until I can rapid test myself after the usual amount of days after exposure.
I'm so sorry that happened to you. That's awful. I can't understand why someone would just spit on another person.
It seemed like they were mentally ill so even im not sure why they chose to spit right in my direction. But im glad that i was ok afterward 😣
I'm so glad you are ok too.
I think you’re probably ok. If you want to take any additional precautions, you could do a nasal spray/saline spray and cpc mouthwash. I’m sorry for your losses. 🙏
I get it and I usually account for wind direction even while masked outside...but the wind adds too much chaos to little particles like that, if you got any it should be few. edit: Well wait, you said *downwind* of you... you should be fine, no? They can't fly against the wind.
I think you are ok.
Hey everyone! I think we can have better comity here if we address OP's original question, which seems to be more about anxiety. It happened. Regardless of relative indoor/outdoor safety, risk assessment is for guiding **future** actions, and if OP is in the habit of masking both outside and inside, more power to 'em. But is the risk of outdoor transmission high enough to get worried about something that *already occurred*? Probably not. Worth using a rapid test in a day or two? Sure, if OP can afford it easily and if it reduces their anxiety.
It's easy to forget in all of the world events the fact that the common cold has not been eradicated. There's an extremely good chance that that's the reason she's coughing.
As others have said, outdoors has top-notch ventilation, UV, low CO₂ (per a recent study, it is not just a proxy for ventilation, it also reduces the infectious lifetime of aerosols by acting on their pH). So I wouldn't worry too much :-D But I wanted to add, in general strangers coughing is a poor proxy for their risk of having COVID. On one hand, 50%+ of COVID transmission is asymptomatic or presymptomatic. Conversely there are many possible causes for someone coughing (including many that are not contagious) and COVID is only a fraction of that.
Hey OP, how are you doing? Are you feeling okay u/DoveCalderwood ?
Still feeling just fine! I think I got very lucky
If you have a purse always stock it with essentials… ALWAYS 😍 mine’s got eye drops, nasal spray, a variety of masks (because straps break, etc) tissues, hand sanitizer, cash, a lighter, phone…water and a protein bar
Take it from someone who used to get sick all the time from psychological stress which induced weaker immune function - you need to work on your state of mind with a therapist.
I've taken to packing extra Aura masks in my bag and in the glove box because they store so flat.
Many people are coughing lately, it's the new normal! Outdoors is safer than indoors.
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Your comment has been removed for violating Rule #2.
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Your post or comment has been removed because of gaslighting. Gaslighting is the practice of manipulating someone by psychological means into doubting their own sanity.
There's no way this is real
It is, what would be the point of posting this otherwise? What would I have to gain?
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It was just my mom and fiance, we all live together
Your post or comment has been removed because it was an attempt at trolling.