{"id":23109,"date":"2020-12-13T15:23:02","date_gmt":"2020-12-13T15:23:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/?p=23109"},"modified":"2020-12-13T15:23:02","modified_gmt":"2020-12-13T15:23:02","slug":"estonians-plunge-into-icy-water-to-ward-off-coronavirus-blues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/2020\/12\/13\/estonians-plunge-into-icy-water-to-ward-off-coronavirus-blues\/","title":{"rendered":"Estonians plunge into icy water to ward off coronavirus blues"},"content":{"rendered":"<h4><strong>Over 500 swimmers swam in the near-freezing waters of Tallinn port in Estonia on Friday, taking part in a giant winter swimming relay in a country where the sport has been a popular way to counter the tedium of coronavirus restrictions.<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The 505 participants each swam the course of 25 metres (27 yards) marked out in a former submarine dockyard, taking 4 hours and 50 minutes to do so.<\/p>\n<p>The swimmers, many attired with funny hats, ranged from a 9-year old boy to an 83-year old woman, and included a pregnant woman who joked her effort should be counted for two.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s actually a smart thing to do at this moment\u201d, Roy Vissers, one of the swimmers, said after emerging from the 4 Celsius (39.2 Fahrenheit) waters into the below-freezing air.<\/p>\n<p>He believed the sport provided good protection against COVID-19.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When you&#8217;re doing this, your body produces extra white blood cells. So, if a virus comes in, there are more white blood cells to attack it and kill it,&#8221; he told Reuters.<\/p>\n<p>Dozens of spectators cheered along the course, many from hot tubs and mobile saunas set up along the side.<\/p>\n<p>Aivar Tugedam, a winter swimming enthusiast who organized the event, said he had seen the sport grow in popularity since Estonia first went into a coronavirus lockdown in spring.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLet&#8217;s say from spring until now, I would say the count of the winter swimmers have tripled in Estonia. It&#8217;s gone wild and really popular\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over 500 swimmers swam in the near-freezing waters of Tallinn port in Estonia on Friday, taking part in a giant winter swimming relay in a country where the sport has been a popular way to counter the tedium of coronavirus restrictions. &nbsp; The 505 participants each swam the course of 25 metres (27 yards) marked out in a former submarine dockyard, taking 4 hours and 50 minutes to do so. The swimmers, many attired with funny hats, ranged from a 9-year old boy to an 83-year old woman, and included<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":23110,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[30,7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23109"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23109"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23109\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23111,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23109\/revisions\/23111"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}