SARS-CoV-2 Transmission Risk from sports Equipment (STRIKE)

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the potential of shared sporting equipment as transmission vectors of SARS-CoV-2 during the reintroduction of sports such as soccer, rugby, cricket, tennis, golf and gymnastics. SETTING: Laboratory based live SARS-CoV-2 virus study. INTERVENTIONS: Ten different types of sporting equipment were inoculated with 40μl droplets containing clinically relevant high and low concentrations of live SARS-CoV-2 virus. Materials were then swabbed at time points relevant to sports (1, 5, 15, 30, 90 minutes). The amount of live SARS-CoV-2 recovered at each time point was enumerated using viral plaque assays, and viral decay and half-life was estimated through fitting linear models to log transformed data from each material. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: The primary outcome measure was quantification of retrievable SARS-CoV-2 virus from each piece of equipment at pre-determined time points. RESULTS: At one minute, SARS-CoV-2 virus was recovered in only seven of the ten types of equipment with the low dose inoculum, one at five minutes and none at 15 minutes. Retrievable virus dropped significantly for all materials tested using the high dose inoculum with mean recovery of virus falling to 0.74% at 1 minute, 0.39% at 15 minutes and 0.003% at 90 minutes. Viral recovery, predicted decay, and half-life varied between materials with porous surfaces limiting virus transmission. CONCLUSIONS: This study shows that there is an exponential reduction in SARS-CoV-2 recoverable from a range of sports equipment after a short time period, and virus is less transferrable from materials such as a tennis ball, red cricket ball and cricket glove. Given this rapid loss of viral load and the fact that transmission requires a significant inoculum to be transferred from equipment to the mucous membranes of another individual it seems unlikely that sports equipment is a major cause for transmission of SARS-CoV-2. These findings have important policy implications in the context of the pandemic and may promote other infection control measures in sports to reduce the risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission and urge sports equipment manufacturers to identify surfaces that may or may not be likely to retain transferable virus.

Assessing the risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission in international professional golf

“… 15 These findings may not be directly applicable to golf given the indoor, high-intensity nature of squash. Previous literature has reported the rate of viral recovery from contaminated sports equipment to be low, 16 and we did not associate any positive cases with fomite transmission via golfing equipment.…”

Public health considerations regarding golf during the COVID-19 pandemic: a narrative review

“…50 Golf is an equipment-based sports and there may be concerns regarding the risk of transmission via fomites on equipment. However, Edwards et al 51 showed that only 0.74% of COVID-19 virus was recoverable at 1 min in high inoculum when applied to a variety of sporting equipment (including a golf ball). Unpublished data from 32 professional golf events on the European Tour, Ladies European Tour and Challenge Tour which regularly tested participants found no transmission from golfer to golfer in outdoor environments.…”

The Potential for Transmission of Coronaviruses via Sports Equipment; A Cricket Case Study

“…These sources suggest that it is plausible but less likely that a viral reservoir would persist into consecutive game weeks. Conversely two studies [38,40] suggest much shorter persistence time in the order of minutes and maybe a few hours dependent on the surface type. This disagreement could be indicative of differing methods.…”

“…Edwards et al [40] conducted perhaps the most complete sports equipment study to date. They inoculated 10 different items of sporting equipment with SARS-CoV-2 virus of concentrations 5.4 × 10 4 and 5.4 × 102 PFU, testing each for virus at 1, 5, 15, 30 and 90 minutes.…”

“…This disagreement could be indicative of differing methods. For example the STRIKE study [40] focused on assessing transmission by touch, choosing to measure persistence by swabbing the inoculated area to simulate a human touching the surface rather than other studies where the inoculated surface itself was directly tested for virus. SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2 have been found to persist stably in aerosol form for greater than three hours [34].…”