There is no evidence that the virus that causes COVID-19 can spread to people through swimming pools, hot tubs, splashes, or fresh and marine water (such as water from lakes, rivers, ponds and oceans). If you swim in a chlorinated pool, your risk of contracting the virus is lower. Coronavirus doesn't survive in chlorinated water, infectious disease expert Amesh A. Adalja, MD, senior academic at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in Maryland, told Health.
We identified in the L·OVE COVID-19 study that evaluates the efficacy but not the safety of strategies to prevent transmission of COVID-19 during swimming-related activities (study by Termansen et al. The study found no association between the implementation of restrictions and the risk of transmission of SARS-CoV-2 during indoor swimming activities. Restrictions included distancing, personal hygiene, limiting the use of shared equipment, limiting physical activity in the pool area, and increasing chlorine content. The authors reported that this analysis had low statistical power.
We considered that the study had a serious risk of bias and provided evidence of very low certainty. The World Health Organization (WHO) has said that “the COVID-19 virus is not transmitted through water when swimming. Swim England worked in collaboration with baby swimming company Water Babies and the Royal Life Saving Society UK (RLSS UK) to commission the study and provide context and materials for the research.
