The COVID-19 pandemic has had a massive impact on the world, and thus a massive impact on the jiu-jitsu community. While a quick scroll down any social media feed will reveal a number of armchair “experts” sharing their thoughts on how the virus is likely to continue affecting the jiu-jitsu community, but now, 2019 ADCC medalist Lachlan Giles (who himself is a Ph.D. holder) has gotten the opinion of someone who is good at jiu-jitsu and an actual expert in how diseases spread.
Dr. Jérôme Fennell is a clinical microbiologist and the Head of Infection Control at Dublin’s Tallaght University Hospital. He’s also a BJJ purple belt and is very familiar with how germs spread from person to person on the mats. Giles and Fennell had a long conversation about the severity of the coronavirus, the expected recommended reopening time for BJJ gyms, how people can protect themselves from illness when the academies do reopen again, and what we can generally expect in the jiu-jitsu world as the pandemic eventually winds down.
If you want to hear COVID-19 predictions from a true expert on the topic, take a listen below:
