Peter wrote:
One interesting bit on the news today is that the govt seems to have concluded that the BLM demonstrations, widely expected to result in a big spread of the virus, have not done so ….. The conclusion is that the virus does not really spread outdoors.
Last sentence is clearly fake news. Yes, the net effect of BLM protests on spread are negative. But the reason is by no means that virus does not spread outside or even that protesters did not increase their likelihood of infection. The reason for that net decrease is simply that while protesters did obviously reduce social distancing in the average of the overall population social distancing was even increased because majority of people stayed at home during protests.
Can be found here: https://www.nber.org/papers/w27408.pdf
That paper is so hilariously politically loaded that it is difficult to be sure whether it is a windup done with a phrase generator, or real research 
In any case, the conclusions (page 26) are largely inconclusive and do not support the “fake news” assertion.
BTW on the news later today was an estimate that 0.03% of the UK currently has the virus, which is not bad at all. It was c. 0.1% not so long ago.
Peter wrote:
are largely inconclusive and do not support the “fake news” assertion
So what? Are they inconclusive or is the conclusion that the virus does not spread outdoors?
If the conclusions are inconclusive, the statement that “the conclusion is that the virus does not really spread outdoors” is fake news!!!
Are there any documented cases of people catching it outdoors?
Peter wrote:
That paper is so hilariously politically loaded that it is difficult to be sure whether it is a windup done with a phrase generator, or real research In any case, the conclusions (page 26) are largely inconclusive and do not support the “fake news” assertion.
You can always discuss the methods used in the study, but I can’t see any kind of political loading at all in the paper. Except possibly a footnote which was phrased as to take as fact that an unproportional number of black people are killed by police in the US. Can you give some example of the “hilarious political loading”?
If the conclusions are inconclusive, the statement that “the conclusion is that the virus does not really spread outdoors” is fake news!!!
That would be true if no other data existed, which can’t be the case. That is a US paper; the virus spread in the UK is probably different. And each country is doing its own research on data it is collecting.
Are there any documented cases of people catching it outdoors?
I don’t know, but with a 1-14 day incubation time you would be hard pressed to find them if they existed. You would need to find somebody potentially exposed in a clear outdoor setting who was then “locked up” somewhere but still developed it. I am certain you can catch it outdoors, because you definitely can catch it indoors, and the only difference is the air movement (wind) velocity, which obviously can be zero.
Off_Field wrote:
Are there any documented cases of people catching it outdoors?
Yes – Soccer match Atalanta Bergamo vs. FC Valencia on Feb. 19th was a Super-Spreader-Event amongst the Supporters in the Stadium and basically started the horrible development in Bergamo thereafter.
I’ve no idea about the football teams, but presumably they were in stadiums rather than in a field in a park somewhere?
Sorry, that’s a BS discussion! Stadiums are open spaces. If people get infected “in a park” it is typically not easy (and not worth the effort) to really trace when exactly the contact happened. To claim “there is not a single proof that the infection actually happened outside” is like claiming “there is not a single proof that I can get infected in my favorite Bar because nobody got ever infected there – therefore it’s unjustified that my favorite bar is closed…”
