Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Oct 29;21(1):1112.
doi: 10.1186/s12879-021-06802-4.

COVID-19 transmission during swimming-related activities: a rapid systematic review

Sally Yaacoub  1 , Joanne Khabsa  1 , Rayane El-Khoury  1 , Amena El-Harakeh  1 , Tamara Lotfi  2   3 , Zahra Saad  1 , Zeina Itani  1 , Assem M Khamis  4 , Ibrahim El Mikati  5 , Carlos A Cuello-Garcia  2 , Francisca Verdugo-Paiva  6   7 , Gabriel Rada  6   7 , Holger J Schünemann  2   3 , Nesrine Rizk  8 , Elie A Akl  9
Affiliations

COVID-19 transmission during swimming-related activities: a rapid systematic review

Sally Yaacoub et al. BMC Infect Dis. .

Abstract

Background: There are uncertainties about mitigating strategies for swimming-related activities in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. There is an opportunity to learn from the experience of previous re-openings to better plan the future one. Our objectives are to systematically review the evidence on (1) the association between engaging in swimming-related activities and COVID-19 transmission; and (2) the effects of strategies for preventing COVID-19 transmission during swimming-related activities.

Methods: We conducted a rapid systematic review. We searched in the L·OVE (Living OVerview of Evidence) platform for COVID-19. The searches covered the period from the inception date of each database until April 19, 2021. We included non-randomized studies for the review on association of COVID-19 transmission and swimming-related activities. We included guidance documents reporting on the strategies for prevention of COVID-19 transmission during swimming-related activities. We also included studies on the efficacy and safety of the strategies. Teams of two reviewers independently assessed article eligibility. For the guidance documents, a single reviewer assessed the eligibility and a second reviewer verified the judgement. Teams of two reviewers extracted data independently. We summarized the findings of included studies narratively. We synthesized information from guidance documents according to the identified topics and subtopics, and presented them in tabular and narrative formats.

Results: We identified three studies providing very low certainty evidence for the association between engaging in swimming-related activities and COVID-19 transmission. The analysis of 50 eligible guidance documents identified 11 topics: ensuring social distancing, ensuring personal hygiene, using personal protective equipment, eating and drinking, maintaining the pool, managing frequently touched surfaces, ventilation of indoor spaces, screening and management of sickness, delivering first aid, raising awareness, and vaccination. One study assessing the efficacy of strategies to prevent COVID-19 transmission did not find an association between compliance with precautionary restrictions and COVID-19 transmission.

Conclusions: There are major gaps in the research evidence of relevance to swimming-related activities in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the synthesis of the identified strategies from guidance documents can inform public health management strategies for swimming-related activities, particularly in future re-opening plans.

Keywords: COVID-19; Coronavirus; Personal protective equipment; Recreation; Social distancing; Swimming.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Study selection for the COVID-19 L·OVE platform search. aRecords are de-duplicated by an algorithm that compares unique identifiers (database ID, DOI, trial registry ID), and citation details (i.e. author names, journal, year of publication, volume, number, pages, article title, and article abstract). bThree of these were guidance documents, two of which were included in the review of strategies
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Strategies for preventing SARS-CoV-2 transmission during swimming-related activities
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. The 2019-nCoV Outbreak Joint Field Epidemiology Investigation Team, Li Q. An outbreak of NCIP (2019-nCoV) infection in China—Wuhan, Hubei province, 2019−2020. China CDC Wkly. 2020;2(5):79–80. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. COVID-19 dashboard by the center for systems science and engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University (JHU). Available from: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html.
    1. Taylor DB. A timeline of the coronavirus pandemic. The New York Times. 2020.
    1. World Health Organization . COVID-19 strategic preparedness and response plan: country preparedness and response status for COVID-19 as of 9 June 2020. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2020.
    1. Nicola M, Alsafi Z, Sohrabi C, Kerwan A, Al-Jabir A, Iosifidis C, et al. The socio-economic implications of the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19): a review. Int J Surg (London, England) 2020;78:185. doi: 10.1016/j.ijsu.2020.04.018. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

Publication types