Climbing in the COVID-19 Pandemic

The SLCA asked for my thoughts on climbing in the COVID pandemic. 

I'm just an ER Doctor, climber, father, and husband. I'm not a leading expert on COVID.  I had big climbing goals for this year, I've been training for two years to get to this point and felt ready to accomplish those goals. So this pandemic sucks. For me, for you, and for all of us.

I want more than anything to escape down south, camp out, turn off my phone and just climb for a few days. But those are selfish thoughts. This is not the time to go climbing or go travel. Stay home. Please. For the families of those around you. The way I see it, if one of my buddies, wive's or husbands died of COVID, how much fun would climbing be anyhow? 

1 asymptomatic carrier can infect 10 people, who can infect 100. Most of you are healthy and would be asymptomatic carriers before you knew you had it. Your droplets would be on bolts, holds, and whatever else you touched. Thats scary. And it should be to you and all those people at the crag. 

We often talk about being good stewards of nature, the crag, and abiding by minimalistic ethics. This is the time to expand those principles and think about the bigger picture. So please, take a step back, stay home, and don't go out and infect people at the crag and most importantly in small towns that can't care for COVID patients. Let's do our part to end this as soon as possible so we can ALL get back to doing the things we love. 

Yours in Climbing

Shaneen Doctor MD

Emergency Physician, Utah Emergency Physicians

March 25th, 2020