I keep seeing articles suggesting that large numbers of people at beaches is high risk for COVID transmission: theguardian.com/us-news/2020/a…
But let's do a little math to realize beaches are a pretty safe place for lots of people to go to get outside & be happy. Happiness matters.
But let's do a little math to realize beaches are a pretty safe place for lots of people to go to get outside & be happy. Happiness matters.
I live in Santa Cruz. There is a beach (one of many) near the boardwalk that gets crowded in the summer and it was recently closed to try to deter tourists from SJ, SF over Easter break. 
If you use Google earth and a ruler this beach is ~1200m x 100m. If each person has a 2m circle around them (12.6m^2) you could fit 9550 individual people on this beach. A photo of that would seem like a very crowded beach but everyone would be observing the 2m/6' rule.
Multiply this number by household size (e.g. 2-4) but take away space needed for adjacent towels and you'd get ~2x more (20K people). Obviously people don't perfectly distribute themselves evenly and one would need space to walk to water/car, so exact number is likely b/w 10-20K.
My point is that you can have extremely large crowds at beaches w/ 2m distance, and, given air flow, transmission risk is tiny. Real issue is groups w/ 2+ households mixing that are touching/breathing on each other, and other types of contact (e.g. buying food).
This is part of a broader misunderstanding of what is and isn't risky. While it is conceivable that 2 runners (or a runner/biker/etc. and a walker) could cross paths and breath/droplets could be blown into the face of the 2nd and lead to transmission, the real risk is minuscule.
Evidence suggests indoor spaces is much riskier, and efforts to reduce R<1 should focus on high risk activities. Given that COVID threat will be around for months->years we need to allow/encourage activities that are low risk and mitigate/reduce high risk.
medrxiv.org/content/10.110…
medrxiv.org/content/10.110…
Let's focus on reducing transmission b/w people from different households, including those that occur from essential activities (e.g. grocery shopping, public transport).
Let's get creative in thinking about ways to allow currently closed businesses/institutions that employ many people (e.g. retail sales, restaurants, schools) to re-open while keeping risks very low.
We'll need everyone's cooperation to not be stuck going in and out of lockdowns for 12-18 months, so let's focus on things that matter, & stop shaming/restricting activities with very low transmission risk. Focus on the real problem.
