I'm quoting from clinicians who know far more about it than you two.
From the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, Stockholm, 2020
High-risk exposure (close contacts*)
- A person living in the same household as a COVID-19 case
- A person having had direct physical contact with a COVID-19 case (e.g. shaking hands)
- A person having unprotected direct contact with infectious secretions of a COVID-19 case (e.g. being
coughed on, touching used paper tissues with a bare hand)
- A person having had face-to-face contact with a COVID-19 case within 2 metres [2] and > 15 minutes
- A person who was in a closed environment (e.g. classroom, meeting room, hospital waiting room, etc.)
with a COVID-19 case for 15 minutes or more and at a distance of less than 2 metres
- A healthcare worker (HCW) or other person providing direct care for a COVID-19 case, or laboratory
workers handling specimens from a COVID-19 case without recommended PPE or with a possible breach
of PPE [3]
- A contact in an aircraft sitting within two seats (in any direction) of the COVID-19 case, travel companions
or persons providing care, and crew members serving in the section of the aircraft where the index case was seated [4] (if severity of symptoms or movement of the case indicate more extensive exposure, passengers seated in the entire section or all passengers on the aircraft may be considered close contacts)
- 2. Low-risk exposure (casual contact)
- A person who was in a closed environment with a COVID-19 case for less than 15 min or at a distance of more than 2 metres
- A person having had face-to-face contact with a COVID-19 case for less than 15 min and at a distance of less than 2 metres
- Traveling together with a COVID-19 case in any kind of conveyance.
Longer duration of contact increases the risk of transmission; the 15-minute limit is arbitrarily selected for practical purposes. Based on individual risk assessments, public health authorities may consider expanding contact tracing and management to persons who had a shorter duration of contact with a case.
IN A NUTSHELL: PROLONGED EXPOSURE TO PEOPLE IN A CONFINED SPACE > THE LIKELIHOOD OF TRANSMISSION.
Errm, that's a cut and paste from a document dealing with known contact cases, and so has very little to do going to a sporting event where the risk of coming into direct contact with an infected person is incredibly low. I'll quote myself and then explain the rationale behind it ...
At the moment, it's thought that the highest risk of spread is indirect via surfaces, and you'll be exposed to far more surfaces in a shopping centre than at somewhere like Goodison.
When you go a sporting event, you'll be sat within 2 metres of roughly 10 people for more than 15 minutes. You'll come into direct contact with lots of other people, but only for a very short time.
The chances of being sat next to someone infected are incredibly low. If you are sat next to someone infected, then you are indeed high risk. But in moving round that stadium, the infected person has almost certainly left a trail of contaminated surfaces behind them - mostly on things like turnstile bars and handrails, which will probably hang around until after you've left the ground.
You're going to be exposed to less of the virus that way than you would be if you were sat next to them, so you might not ingest the virus, but, chances are, in a large gathering scenario, that person will expose more people indirectly than they do indirectly. That holds true whether it's a sporting event or a shopping centre.
It's easier politically, to choose to close down sporting venues rather than shopping centres, but the rationale of closing one without closing the other is pretty flaky.
It's better to close the sporting events than doing nothing, but pretending there's less risk in going shopping for a few hours than sitting next to a fan in a ground is a very political thing to do caused by being under pressure from big business. Think back through your life, and how many colds and other bugs have you picked up from a snotty checkout person, or someone in an office who insists on coming in when they're not well ?
In terms of risk profile, I'd take a couple of hours in an external environment at a footie ground over a week in an open plan office with two or three hundred people wandering around. But one hits business, while playing behind closed doors has little economic effect.
