Are kids safe in a wilderness program from Covid-19?

No

For a group of people to achieve some safety from infection from the Corona virus, they need to be isolated for at least 3-4 weeks.

It takes up to 14 days to see symptoms from a person who is infected. That means that a teenager or an employee can go to the wilderness program and stay there while infecting people without the person feeling sick themself.

In a wilderness program, children enter the program at random schedules. The employees are replaced every week, the therapist comes in one time per week. Goods delivered to the wilderness program needs to be handled in a certain way in order to prevent infection from bags and the food itself to be passed to the persons in the wilderness program.

The most important tool to prevent the virus from spreading is to limit all contact to persons who is not in the group. That means that an employee must refrain from close interactions with the wilderness program for 14 days after joining the trek. No manual restraints, no close person to person talk. All participants must stay at least 2 meters from each other.

Washing hands is also important. Then new food are brought in the virus can be on the surface of the packing the food are transported within. Once the food is received the participants need to wash hands. People who have been in wilderness programs know that water is limited. Alcohol is an alternative but the program is that some teenagers then would drink it if they have this kind of addiction, so it cannot be used either.

Once a person shows symptoms of Covid-19 they need to be in a place where they can be brought to a hospital quickly. Nurses and doctors who handle patients infected tells of cases where people need a respirator quicker than it would have been the case if we were talking of normal pneumonia. In the past we have been a number of cases where the time used for transport to a hospital from a wilderness program proved too long and the participant died. In some cases the authorities stated that it was neglect. Back then it was a new thing. Today no firm can claim that they are unaware of this risk and it would be criminal investigation and possible prison if they continue to operate a wilderness program when the world is on standstill due to Covid-19.

We recommend that all wilderness programs shut down if they did not do that already. One death participant is simply one to many.