Swimming: Coronavirus

(asked on 15th December 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what the scientific basis is for the decision to prevent individuals who are over 18 years of age from participating in club swimming during the covid-19 outbreak.


Answered by
Nigel Huddleston Portrait
Nigel Huddleston
Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
This question was answered on 11th January 2021

As the Prime Minister said on 23 November, the national restrictions ended on Wednesday 2 December, and gyms and sport facilities can reopen across all tiers. This means that certain leisure and sporting facilities including swimming pools are able to open subject to relevant social contact rules in each tier.

As set out in the COVID Winter Plan the decision to allocate tiers is based on a range of factors and will be reviewed every 14 days. In Tier 3 areas we have taken further measures to limit social interactions and therefore opportunities for the virus to spread. For swimming pools specifically, the transmission concerns have always been around points of contact within facilities, such as changing rooms.

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