COVID-19 & Races: What Have We Learned?

Over the last year and a half, we have seen approximately an 11-fold decrease (Scheer, 2021) in participation at endurance running events despite an estimated chance of less than 1-2 per million of contracting COVID-19 while running (JAAF, 2020). Looking back, we should have been prioritizing smaller, local, outdoor endurance events all along, given the chance of outdoor transmission is over 1,000 times lower than indoor (Qian, 2021). This would have not only been smartest in terms of pandemic control, but also for encouraging continued physical fitness, human connection and supporting the small businesses which hold the events that have impacted so many of our lives.

Understanding the true risk of various situations has been a challenge during this pandemic. Consider this: if less than 1/1,000 SARS-CoV-2 transmissions occur outdoors, we already know that is low. But the actual risk of getting infected also depends on your risk of encountering an infected individual at an event. Currently, around 0.06% of the US population has potentially infectious COVID. Multiply that by risk of asymptomatic transmission indoors (0.7%) (Madewell, 2020) by the risk of outdoor transmission (0.1%) (0.0006 x 0.007 being on the order of 1/100,000 (Watson, 2021) and, as mentioned above, 1/1-2 million for long distance outdoor running events (JAAF, 2020). As the prevalence of COVID-19 decreases and more people are vaccinated, the risk of outdoor event-related transmission will become even lower. I would argue it is to the point where we should not be concerned about being infected during an outdoor race, especially considering the transient nature of most contact. Indeed, the odds of getting struck by lightning in the coming year (1/500,000) are at least 2-4 times higher than getting COVID-19 during a trail race.