Are Escape Rooms safe during Covid?
- David Watermeier
- Aug 23, 2020
- 3 min read
Updated: Aug 24, 2020
We get these questions all the time. The short answer for escape rooms is yes. We will dive deeper and give 5 reasons why Escape Rooms are the safest form of entertainment you can do outside of your home.
Firstly, let’s explain what escape rooms are. They are private experiences where your group will be taken on an adventure and solve logical puzzles towards either escaping or completing an objective. The standard definition of “Escape Rooms = Escaping the Room” has evolved to now include objective based games, which most escape rooms are at this point. Escape Rooms are not typically horror based as they were in the past.
Before you attend an escape room, make sure you check their FAQ or with them directly to see their procedures they are taking to be safe. Escape Rooms are not forced to all follow the exact same procedures between different locations.
1. Escape Rooms are private at every location now.
If they are not then we strongly recommend not going there until it is safe to do so. Pre-quarantine escape rooms had been moving towards an all private experience. Before 2019 there was still a visible split in public vs private for escape rooms. We only moved to all private mid 2018. So bring your family or close friends to our rooms The Overgrown or Franklin’s Christmas.
2. Escape Rooms have always cleaned before you arrive.
Before you enter your game, you can be guaranteed that the rooms have been disinfected to the best of their (the Gamemasters) ability. We at Escape Room Era have been extremely strict about cleaning the environment between every game. During the initial panic, when everyone was buying up all the cleaning supplies we were not worried. Already in stock were buckets of lysol wipes we had purchased almost a year earlier. It was and is a standard to wipe every single surface that someone could possibly touch. We as well as many escape rooms are following guidelines issued by the CDC for disinfectants able to kill the Covid virus.
3. Escape Rooms are equipped with air purifiers to clean the air between games.
The CDC agrees that an air filter equipped with HEPA air filters can clean the air from COVID-19 at 100% efficiency. This is because the coronavirus is 0.125 microns large, and the HEPA filter blocks particles as small as 0.1 microns at 100% efficiency. Pretty much, certain air filters work well and we use them. In fact, we have at least 3 in every escape room. According to the CDC, recent laboratory studies have indicated that re-aerosolization of bioaerosols from HEPA and N95 respirator filter material is unlikely under normal conditions. Meaning once the filter cleans the air, the bad stuff is not able to harm anyone again.
4. Escape Games are spaced out to provide ample time for cleaning.
There are many businesses people are visiting during this time. Restaurants with outdoor seating, grocery stores, hardware stores, retail stores, and many others. Each of these businesses do not have any waiting period between groups, as well as none of them being private. In the past escape room appointments were spaced 1.5 hours or sometimes less in between games. Even as little as 1 hour! Literally no time to clean the games. We at Escape Room Era spaced out the games to be 2 hours and 15 minutes between every game. There is ample time for proper reset and disinfection. Most escape rooms are doing something similar.
5. Escape Rooms enforce masks and give hand sanitizer.
Masks (you know what kind) and hand sanitizer are proven to at least reduce the risk and spread of Covid from person to person. Some escape rooms are also reporting temperature checks for their employees, as well as customers on arrival. Temperature checks should never be a replacement for preventative measures as some people do not have symptoms while they are able to transmit the virus.
At Escape Room Era we instruct all guests to wear their masks on for the duration of their game, we also provide hand sanitizer as well. We are hosting games contact free, so taking a temperature check is impossible with us due to our customers never coming face to face with any of our Gamemasters.
With proper procedures we firmly believe that escape rooms can be the safest form of out-of-home entertainment for you and your family.
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