Caver Track & Trace

Post by **David Cooke** » Tue 23 Jun 2020 14:11

With the Boris' announcement today I think we are a big step closer to caving resuming in significant numbers.

However we have no idea how safe the caving environment is. It is clearly enclosed so drafts might make a nonsense of the 2m rule. It is cool and generally wet, factors that possibly help the virus survive much longer than it would above ground.

How long can the virus survive underground? What are the chances of a caver becoming infected from the cave or other cavers? As far as I know there are no studies or planned studies that will help answer this question. I think we should be proactive and try and get a handle on this.

The other thought that occurred to me is that the track and trace app, even if our bungling Government can get it to work, is never going to work underground. If we were to ask cavers to log their caving trips centrally and if they were to fall ill to notify us. Firstly we could notify others at risk because they caved with that person and secondly we could see if there is any cave related pattern in infections. That would give us a first order approximation on the safety of caving.

What do people think?