Risk of coronavirus at parkruns ‘relatively low’, research says

The risk of contracting Covid-19 at a parkrun event is ‘relatively low’, according to disease experts.

A report commissioned by parkrun found that their events are overall likely to be ‘very safe’, raising the prospect of such events being able to take place later this year.

Professor Clive Beggs, a physiology and disease expert, developed the report on behalf of parkrun. His research simulated thousands of 263-runner events, finding that over 10,000 events only 403 runners became infected, despite there being an infectious runner present at more than 70% of these events. Therefore the all-important average R value per event was just 0.057.

His findings corroborate with those from other road races around the world, which have been characterised by ‘a noticeable lack of major infectious outbreaks,’ his report says.

While Beggs’ findings suggest parkrun events will be able to restart as planned from June this year, alongside high risk venues like pubs, this is reliant on adherence to parkrun’s Covid-19 Framework, which encourages organisers to maintain social distancing and avoid crowding.

Describing the results of his research, Beggs said: ‘Parkrun events are likely to be very safe. This finding appears to be supported by the evidence from the various road races that have been held around the world during the pandemic, which have been characterised by a noticeable lack of infectious outbreaks.

‘Based on this, it would seem to me that running events are probably already safe in the UK, and getting safer every day as prevalence falls and the vaccine rollout continues.’

Professor Dame Sally Davies, former Chief Medical Officer for England, said: ‘Parkrun communities should take confidence from the findings that walking, running, jogging or volunteering at parkrun is likely to be very safe.

‘Now, more than ever, we need parkrun to improve our nation’s public health and happiness. Our wellbeing, physical health and mental health depend on us being active and being together, in line with the government’s guidelines and parkrun’s COVID-19 Framework. Based on this evidence, I very much look forward to parkrun restarting from 5 June.’