Corona Virus - Has your country banned kitesurfing?

[matth]

I think they don’t want people to get hurt, since hospitals are overrun already and to keep capacity.

I don’t like it either, but it makes sense.

Come on guys, around 4 weeks for the lives of others.
We can do that and should respect it.

Have someone in your family infected and in need for a hospital...but the needed bed is busy because someone wanted to do their sport.

My mum is in hospital right now, and I am very happy with the hospital still having capacity. If not, she would have sent back home with being 80 years old...

Think twice, please. And soon we all will be back and enjoy our sport even more !

Not a great time to get hurt....In New york right now, they are telling EMTs if they can not resusctate on scene to leave body to be picked up and do not bring to hospital...

If you must kite I would say take it easy, save that highest jump or new trick for another time...even a blown out knee or ankle would be a nightmare....just saying.

I hope your mom makes a full recovery...

[Flyingseb]

And soon we all will be back and enjoy our sport even more !

Thinking of the next time I will be able to go kitesurfing is bringing me each time a big smile
There will always be wind and waves
Keep ready for it, do home exercise, service your gear

Not going kiting now is also a matter of having a solidary and responsible attitude with all people who are totally involved into that s*** (nurses, etc,...), and not being that a****e who doesn't care and thinks he is above everything, and that injuries are for others.

[iriejohn]

Look at it this way.

In the grand scheme of things, if you're going to live a long life then a few weeks out of your life is trivial.

If you don't think you have much longer to live then there are more important things in your life than kitesurfing.

Toby, here's a hug. Wish I had my Mum to worry about - she was killed in a car accident when I was 12 years old. Still miss her.

[mike dubs]

I think anyone driving to go and kite is being selfish. Not only are you exposing the EMT personnel and yourself to risk from car or kiting accidents. You’ll stop for fuel, food, etc touch things and and either spread it or pick it up. Stay at home, don’t drive unless it’s essential travel and only leave home to get food, or walk, run, bike ( without driving somewhere to do it.)
I keep seeing videos of Americans and Others in packed beach car parks windsurfing, kiting and winging saying they’re doing daily exercise. They’re missing the point and will still be spreading it. The US deaths will keep spiraling unless they isolate properly. Mike

[iriejohn]

I think anyone driving to go and kite is being selfish. Not only are you exposing the EMT personnel and yourself to risk from car or kiting accidents. You’ll stop for fuel, food, etc touch things and and either spread it or pick it up. Stay at home, don’t drive unless it’s essential travel and only leave home to get food, or walk, run, bike ( without driving somewhere to do it.)
I keep seeing videos of Americans and Others in packed beach car parks windsurfing, kiting and winging saying they’re doing daily exercise. They’re missing the point and will still be spreading it. The US deaths will keep spiraling unless they isolate properly. Mike

Too late, I fear.

[Peter_Frank]

I think anyone driving to go and kite is being selfish. Not only are you exposing the EMT personnel and yourself to risk from car or kiting accidents. You’ll stop for fuel, food, etc touch things and and either spread it or pick it up. Stay at home, don’t drive unless it’s essential travel and only leave home to get food, or walk, run, bike ( without driving somewhere to do it.)
I keep seeing videos of Americans and Others in packed beach car parks windsurfing, kiting and winging saying they’re doing daily exercise. They’re missing the point and will still be spreading it. The US deaths will keep spiraling unless they isolate properly. Mike

So not true....

Why should you stop for getting food, more than usual?
And even if, what is the difference from when going in the supermarket???
If desired, you can eat before or after you have been out, at home.

Car or kiting accidents, naaah, if there havent been an accident at all over the years, then even one is not something that changes anything in the big picture.

So you dont touch things, and you ride either alone or with friends on the water, no risk getting too close, and everybody can self launch and land nowadays.

Besides, the beaches we use are mostly empty anyways, and by far the majority of kite spots are without any people around.

It is a win win for everyone, in the surf community at least

Makes absolutely no sense not to drive and go surfing !
It is not "travelling" to another region, it is simply a drive to the water in the vicinity (for us here in Denmark, we have water quite close ALL over, no matter where you live).

Where others who dont surf have to either run or ride bicycles, or walk, to get some fresh air and move the body.
Here the risk of being infected or infect others, are higher than when you go surfing, definitely

Peter

[Matteo V]

The state I currently reside in this time of year, has stupidly decided to close down camping at campgrounds and Wildlife Management areas. So while traveling for work, I have to go to a hotel. Instead of isolating myself in my van, I have to go to the front desk to pick up my key card, and then go in and out of the same entrys that everyone else does. Also, the ventilation system in the hotels I have been in, seem to be somewhat communal with the air recirculation.

On top of that, while the parks are going to stay open during the day, they are going to limit the number of restroom facilities open. Thus they're creating another choke point for infection.

We see all of this wonderous technology around us. We tend to think of ourselves as an intelligent species. We believe that we are capable of amazing things. But the obvious, well that seems to elude us. One has to wonder if Government is more deadly than this virus.

[plummet]

I think anyone driving to go and kite is being selfish. Not only are you exposing the EMT personnel and yourself to risk from car or kiting accidents. You’ll stop for fuel, food, etc touch things and and either spread it or pick it up. Stay at home, don’t drive unless it’s essential travel and only leave home to get food, or walk, run, bike ( without driving somewhere to do it.)
I keep seeing videos of Americans and Others in packed beach car parks windsurfing, kiting and winging saying they’re doing daily exercise. They’re missing the point and will still be spreading it. The US deaths will keep spiraling unless they isolate properly. Mike

So not true....

Why should you stop for getting food, more than usual?
And even if, what is the difference from when going in the supermarket???
If desired, you can eat before or after you have been out, at home.

Car or kiting accidents, naaah, if there havent been an accident at all over the years, then even one is not something that changes anything in the big picture.

So you dont touch things, and you ride either alone or with friends on the water, no risk getting too close, and everybody can self launch and land nowadays.

Besides, the beaches we use are mostly empty anyways, and by far the majority of kite spots are without any people around.

It is a win win for everyone, in the surf community at least

Makes absolutely no sense not to drive and go surfing !
It is not "travelling" to another region, it is simply a drive to the water in the vicinity (for us here in Denmark, we have water quite close ALL over, no matter where you live).

Where others who dont surf have to either run or ride bicycles, or walk, to get some fresh air and move the body.
Here the risk of being infected or infect others, are higher than when you go surfing, definitely

Peter

On an individual basis, I agree with you Peter. I can and have kited for years without hospitalization or emergency room requirements. In fact, I have only required it once over all the years of kiting and that was in the early days while learning on slow kite with almost not depower.....
Kiting is definitely a self-isolating sport also. Exercising in your local neighborhood subjects you to more people, more chance of transmission than if you drive, parked, rigged and kited.

But if you think of the herd mentality and if non essesntial driving was acceptable then think of the thousands of individuals that would just treat it as a massive holiday and blast all over the place doing "exercise". Maybe a newbie would see you kiting and thinks.... its ok to kite and going kiting and injures himself?

The rules need to be simple for the stupid and accident-prone. Do you allow kite surfing but no surfing? because surfing means you have to sit in a line up close to people? What about a weak swimmer swimming on a non-patrolled beach? I believe the rules are so the lowest common denominator can understand them and so it is easy to police. Who decides who is skilled enough to kite without accident?

The other side of it is unknowingly taking the virus and transmitting it in a different location. Let's just assume you have the virus and don't know it. You drive 20km to the beach set your kite up, sneeze next to a fence post or something like that, the virus can sit on that surface for 3 days. Some caregivers for the elderly going for her daily walk touches the post and itches her nose before for she washes her hands. She then goes to the rest home and infects 100 elderly people, 15 or which die....... Prior to you going to that beach the beach area was clean from virus. Now its infected and people have died.

But you have gone for a kite so its worthwhile.......

Ok thats an extreme and unlikely case. But that is the level of transmission they are dealing with.

[jumptheshark]

When we’re talking virus viability on surfaces for days on end, I’m assuming we’re referring to sheltered indoor surfaces like doorknobs, point of sale key pads and hand rails. Can’t really imagine it applies in any real way to outdoor surfaces that are exposed to sunlight, rain or cold temps. Anyone have any better info on this ?

The real question of whether or not kiting during the time of COVID-19 is ethical depends on many local factors. It will be a challenge for many of us to do the right thing.

In very real terms, I am quite certain I could grab a session without exposing anyone to increased risk of transmission. More often than not I have no contact with anyone in a session anyway. No stops for gas, food, or touching of anything really other than my own car and gear. Have also managed 30+ years of wind sports without any health care contact. Still, I absolutely get Plummet’s point that it’s not really about the individual but more the herd.

[Peter_Frank]

Agree fully, it is the "herds" which are the problem.

For the same reason we dont (and must not) go into summerhouses, as they are never located in the vicinity, and if you go there, you might spread the virus to the local community in that area, when you go shopping.
Or reverse, bring it back to non-infected when going home - both scenarios are really critical.

The major problem here though, are youngsters who dont give a damn, as they wont die - but they could be the cause to a major crisis where it explodes, as they are carriers.

Not allowed to be more than 10 people in a crowd anywhere, outside, and in reality we always are a lot less, only the families living together, and never close to other people, not outside not in the few open shops.

Even the bridges between small parts of land sections will maybe be closed now, to hinder people "moving" around in the easter.

And ever since the start, gloves and loads of hand rubbing alcohol whenever you have touched something in a shop or the few open work places.

But going surfing in the vicinity is no problem for anyone

Peter