Abstract
COVID-19 is a novel infectious disease which has rapidly spread around the globe, disrupting several aspects of public life over the past year. After numerous infection clusters emerged among travelers hosted in ski resorts in early 2020, several European countries closed ski areas. These measures were mostly upheld throughout the 2020 and 2021 winter season, generating significant economic loss for mountain communities. The aim of this rapid systematic review was to explore the association between recreational skiing and the spread of COVID-19. This review was conducted according to the WHO practical guidelines on rapid reviews and the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. PubMed, Scopus, MedRxiv and Promed-mail were screened to identify relevant scientific and grey literature published since the emergence of COVID-19. Among the 11 articles included, seven focused on cases recorded during the first epidemic wave, when COVID-19 containment measures were not yet mandatory. Most infection clusters could be directly linked to public gatherings which took place without the enforcement of restrictions. There is currently no evidence to suggest an association between COVID-19 spread and recreational skiing. It may be reasonable to consider the reopening of ski areas in compliance with strict rules and preventive measures.
Highlights
SARS-CoV-2 is a novel highly infectious coronavirus first detected in the region ofWuhan (China) at the end of 2019 [1]
The only three identified articles assessing the link between recreational skiing and the pandemic during the second wave are a newspaper article, a study on 48 wastewater samples and a follow-up sub-analysis of the seroprevalence study performed in Cogne (Italy) during the “first wave” in early 2020
Despite the fact that several countries decided to postpone the reopening of ski areas, there is currently no robust evidence to support the association between COVID-19 spread and skiing, and no strong conclusions can be drawn at this point in time
Summary
SARS-CoV-2 is a novel highly infectious coronavirus first detected in the region ofWuhan (China) at the end of 2019 [1]. Due to the novelty of the disease, lack of specific preventive measures (such as vaccines, which only became widely available in January 2021) and effective treatment options, many unspecific preventive measures (i.e., nonpharmaceutical interventions, NPI) were put in place globally to limit disease transmission, including social distancing, stricter guidelines on hand hygiene, the compulsory use of face masks [4], travel restrictions [5], lockdown measures [6,7], contact tracing [8], quarantine and home isolation [9], the targeted use of new health technologies [10] and an adequate risk communication [11,12].
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