How to Protect Yourself from Infections in the University Pool While Swimming

Understandably, you have fears about the pandemic and how it will likely alter your summer plans, especially your visits to the outdoor pools. If you have such fears as a university student and visiting the university, then your fears are probably well-founded, considering the kind of crowd that would be in a university environment. And after months of lockdown, people might consider chilling out in the pool.  The question to ask is: are you at risk of contracting the virus from a swimming pool?

First of all, you should know that the guidelines for going to a university pool to swim are the same for the other outdoor activities. You still have to regularly wash your hands, practice social distancing, wear a mask, and do all the other things that are meant to reduce your risk of contracting the virus.

However, it is worth noting that swimming pools pose a different type of challenge to other outdoor environments, even though you have the same guidelines to follow. In fact, some of these guidelines are even difficult to follow in the pool. A typical example is wearing a mask. This is something that is totally impossible to do while you’re swimming. Also, the fact that it will likely be crowded makes it hard to keep to the social distancing rule.

While there is a possibility that you might get infected if you go out to your university pool to swim, especially if it is crowded, you also need to know that the most significant factor to getting infected is not the water. As it stands, there is nothing risky about pool water as far as the virus is concerned. The coronavirus is not a waterborne disease. Secondly, according to essay writers at custom essay help, the pool water contains bromine and chlorine, which will make the virus inactive, thereby reducing your risk of getting the virus from inside the water.

There really is no risk of getting the virus from the pool water, and even if there is, it is very low that it is considered negligible. So, the risk is not inside your university pool but the people that also come to the pool.

It is common knowledge that coronavirus is transmitted from person to person – basically, someone breathing in droplets from cough, sneeze, or talking of an infected person. The disease can also be contracted by touching surfaces where an infected person has passed out droplets from their mouths on.

So you shouldn’t be worried about the water, instead; you should worry about the guy next to you or that surface that you have touched. That is why the standard guideline of maintaining 6 feet distance to the next person comes in handy. If you have also touched an infected surface without knowing and washed your hand soon after, you will be safe. So, you really can’t look past the two safety guidelines of social distancing and hands washing to protect yourself from infection.

Although you are more at risk in an indoor environment, especially a crowded one than the typical outdoor environment, a crowded outdoor environment also poses a lot of danger and is high risk. So, you will be safer for it if you may go to your university’s swimming pool at a time when there are not many people. The fewer the number of people in that environment, the fewer the risk of infection and infection transmission.

In an article by Dr. Lautenbach, one of the best dissertation writers at custom essay service, the nature of swimming pools, especially the public ones, makes it difficult to spread out. This is unlike when you are in a park and out for a picnic where it’s easier to practice social distancing. However, you still have to try as much as possible to keep yourself safe and keep the guidelines even in the swimming pool where it is more difficult to. It is a challenge that the same guidelines exist for the swimming pool as the other outdoor environment. The guideline does not put into consideration the context of a swimming pool. You might as well find yourself drowning if you have to wear a mask in the pool. But yet again, it’s something that you have to do. If you aren’t swimming, put on a mask, stay 6 feet apart from the closest person to you and wash your hands regularly. That’s the best that you can do to protect yourself from coronavirus infection in a place like a university swimming pool. You also have to minimize the kind of activities you will do even in the water that will make you and the other people physically close together.

To make all of this easier to comprehend, here’s a breakdown of tips that you can follow to protect yourself and others and prevent infection while swimming in the university pool.

Before you go

• Don’t go out of your house if you feel the symptoms of coronavirus or have been diagnosed and awaiting the results of your COVID-19 test, or you were exposed to someone who has tested positive.
• Confirm that the swimming pool has steps to help prevent spreading the virus.
• Take your mask, wipes, hand sanitizers, soaps, tissues, etc. things that help you stay safe.

At the pool

• Wear a mask when you are outside of the pool water.
• Maintain social distancing, as much as possible, in the water and out of it.
• When it’s hard to maintain social distancing, masks are even more critcal.
• Wash your hands regularly and don’t share items with others, especially people that you don’t live together in the same house.
• When there’s no soap, you can use a hand sanitizer with up to 60% alcohol or more to rub your hand. Ensure that your hands are not too dirty when you apply the hand sanitizers as it reduces the sanitizer’s effectiveness. So, take your time to wipe off dirt and sand from your hands before you use the sanitizer.
• If you don’t have a mask on, be sure to cover your sneezes and coughs with the inside of your elbow or with a tissue and dispose of the tissue in the trash immediately, then wash your hands afterward. Don’t forget that you can use sanitizers if the soap isn’t available to wash your hands.

Conclusion

Protecting yourself from the virus isn’t as difficult as it might look, even in an outdoor environment like the university swimming pool. But it isn’t also easy to do. You just have to be sure of what you are doing. The guidelines are still the same; mask, social distancing, and frequent hand wash.

Author’s Bio Michael Gorman is a highly skilled freelance essay writer and proofreader from the UK who currently works at assignment writing to write my essay. Being interested in everyday development, he writes various blog posts and discovers new aspects of human existence every day.