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I teach karate lessons. Everyone in my house has had at least 4 covid vaccines (pfizer and/or Moderna). No one in my family has contracted Covid yet. My kids do school on-line still. My wife works from home. I am currently teaching my karate lessons outside at a park. All my students wear masks. We engage in minimal contact. I have one son with High Functioning Autism, so we have been really hesitant at reengaging with the rest of the world as we are concerned about the neurological damage of covid (and long covid). And we have been basically operating as if it is still the summer of 2020 in regards to safety protocols.
Outdoors activities are generally “safe” because ventilation of air is the maximum (plus, if it is a sunny day, the UV light of the sun can also help to inactivate the virus). I would not require your students to maintain masks while outdoors. However, when there is repeated close contact, such as with the 2-person drills that you have described, then there could be some risk introduced and you could require masks during those drills. Returning to indoor lessons can be done if you ensure improvements to indoor air quality. Indoor air quality improvements can be done through:
- ventilation – bringing “fresh” air coming indoors (e.g., opening windows and having window fans to blow air inside)
- filtration – HEPA filter units
- sterilization – This could be done with UV light inactivation of viruses, but beware that standard UV lights cannot be directly exposed to the eyes because it can cause corneal irritation and damage. Standard UV lights can be mounted to the upper part of the room to shine the UV light toward the ceiling so that the eyes are not exposed. This should be done by professionals and is a more expensive option. I would try to improve air quality through ventilation and filtration first.
Risk of getting infected by Covid through touch or contaminated foods is a much lower risk with observation of standard hygiene. So, your example of a person sneezing on your food is not an example of compliance with standard hygienic food handling and would be a health violation.
