Dear Heal the Ocean Community:

Last week HTO shared two E-Letters with our subscribers regarding a recent LA Times article discussing the possibility of COVID-19 in the ocean. The below E-Letter is COVID-19 in the Ocean? Part II.

The public response to our E-Letters was fantastic. However, we do have a correction to make. We previously said in COVID-19 in the Ocean? Part II: “As an atmospheric chemist, Prather’s work is focused on aerosol transport of the COVID-19 virus, people to people, including beach-goers. She was never studying the possibility of the virus getting into the ocean and becoming airborne in wave action for surfers and ocean-swimmers to breathe.” However, after a discussion with Dr. Prather, it is clear now that she does in fact study the potential roles of airborne transport in the outdoor atmosphere, particularly looking at ocean-to-atmosphere transfer of viruses in the coastal zone. Dr. Prather’s current research work looks into determining how much human-made pollution that gets into the ocean gets launched into the atmosphere and the resulting potential health effects.

We apologize for the confusion and we hope this update on Dr. Prather's research subject provides clarity.

-Heal the Ocean

The public response to Heal the Ocean’s E-letter of Wednesday, April 8, 2020 (COVID-19 in the Ocean? No Way!) was overwhelming, in that many took time to e-mail us their thanks for our clarification of how the work of Scripps Institution scientist Kim Prather was misrepresented in the Los Angeles Times. As an atmospheric chemist, Prather’s work is focused on aerosol transport of the COVID-19 virus, people to people, including beach-goers. She was never studying the possibility of the virus getting into the ocean and becoming airborne in wave action for surfers and ocean-swimmers to breathe.

Some of our readers asked, But is this virus in the ocean?

We have been digging around in available literature, including the March 19, 2020 publication on water and waste management for COVID-19 from the World Health Organization (WHO):

The COVID-19 virus is an enveloped virus, with a fragile outer membrane. Generally, enveloped viruses are less stable in the environment and are more susceptible to oxidants, such as chlorine. While there is no evidence to date about survival of the COVID-19 virus in water or sewage, the virus is likely to become inactivated significantly faster than non-enveloped human enteric viruses with known waterborne transmission (such as adenoviruses, norovirus, rotavirus and hepatitis A). For example, one study found that a surrogate human coronavirus survived only 2 days in dechlorinated tap water and in hospital wastewater at 20°C.8 Other studies concur, noting that the human coronaviruses transmissible gastroenteritis coronavirus and mouse hepatitis virus demonstrated a 99.9% die-off in from 2 days9 at 23°C to 2 weeks10 at 25°C. Heat, high or low pH, sunlight, and common disinfectants (such as chlorine) all facilitate die off (emphasis ours).

Heal the Ocean will keep our eye on research and the continuously evolving science on this issue. We have also reached out to the highly respected and widely published USC microbiologist Jed Fuhrman, who chairs the USC Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters and Sciences, and whose work focuses on the roles of microorganisms (including viruses) in the ocean. Heal the Ocean worked with Dr. Fuhrman and his lab on virus testing in Santa Barbara coastal waters between 1999-2000.

In the meantime, we recommend avoiding the beach on days immediately after a rainstorm (as people should do even when there isn’t a global pandemic going on). Other pathogens and bacteria are known to wash into the ocean during rain events, and now is not the time to be sick with any kind of illness. Before you go in the water, check beach status and ocean water quality testing results, and avoid contact with water coming out of creek mouths and storm drains, and areas or water bodies affected by sewage spills or that are offshore from coastal areas with high numbers of septic tanks.

We at Heal the Ocean continue checking for updated information from the CDC and WHO. An additional resource that has been helpful and informative is Surfrider Foundation’s Blog Post on COVID-19 and Beach Water Quality: Updates from the Research Community.

It is always better to be safe than sorry: Stay Home, and Please Be Safe!

Yours in good health,

Heal the Ocean