Swimming pool: water disinfection makes the virus inactive
Summer is fast approaching and temperatures are rising. Result: the urge to swim is growing. But is it very prudent in this period of the Covid-19 epidemic? The French Research Institute for the Exploitation of the Sea (Ifremer) had already carried out analyzes in the seawater of French maritime facades and had found no trace of the virus in the samples taken. What about swimming pools?
Covid-19: the importance of barrier gestures
In an opinion dated April 24, the High Council of Public Health (HCSP) indicated that no study concerning the survival of the coronavirus in swimming pools was available. The health authority nevertheless specified that the pool water did not appear to be “a good place for the survival and development of viruses. Viruses that have an envelope – influenza viruses or viruses of the coronavirus family – are too fragile and survive too short a time in the outside environment to be transmitted in swimming pools”.
A report from the Spanish Supreme Council for Scientific Research published last May indicates that “in swimming pools and spas, where the use of disinfecting agents is widely established in order to avoid microbial contamination of water by the influx of users, the residual concentration of the agent of disinfection present in the water it should be sufficient for the inactivation of the virus “. In other words, swimming pool waters are usually treated with chlorine, which helps to eliminate the coronavirus.
The Spanish institution ensures that moreover “The main way to transmission du Sars-CoV-2 in beaches, rivers, lakes and swimming pools is respiratory secretions generated by coughing, sneezing and person-to-person contact “.
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