Can beaches and bathing environments represent a risk of spreading COVID-19?

The emergence of new viruses with a high epidemic potential is often the result of complex dynamics involving humans, animals and environments (1). Coronaviruses belong to the Coronaviridae family, which includes viruses capable of infecting humans and causing a wide range of clinical symptoms, from the common cold to even lethal respiratory syndromes. In the past few years, we have dealt with the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and the Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS). On 11 March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared as Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) – the new disease caused by the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) that quickly spread throughout the world – a pandemic.