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Coronavirus cannot be contracted while swimming in the sea, says expert

Seawater destroys the viral lipid envelope and ultraviolet light inactivates the virus, he said

MOSCOW, July 20. /TASS/. The novel coronavirus cannot be contracted while swimming in the sea as seawater is ruinous for its lipid envelope, Yevgeny Timakov, chief physician of the Leader of Medicine medical center and specialist in infectious diseases and vaccines, said on Monday.

"Seawater destroys the viral lipid envelope and ultraviolet light inactivates this virus. It means that the virus poses no risks on a beach or in the sea," he said in an interview with the Vremya Pokazhet (Time will Show) program on TV Channel One.

Earlier, Mikhail Lebedev of the Center for Molecular Diagnosis of the Central Research Institute of Epidemiology said earlier the coronavirus infection cannot be caught while swimming in outdoors water bodies because sunrays are ruinous for the virus.