Can I Sit in a Park With a Few People Outside?

Here’s what experts say

Your risk for exposure to the virus is much lower outdoors than indoors because you have infinite ventilation, plus strong UVA and UVB rays from the sun really can kill the virus. But you still have to keep your distance from people, and you should probably wear a mask.

“The issue about being outside is are you crowded? If you are on the beach and people are cheek to jowl next to each other, that’s probably not a good thing because [you could be] touching other people [or they could be] coughing on you,” says Donald Milton, MD, PhD, a professor of environmental health at the University of Maryland. “So being outside, keeping social distancing — or physical distancing might be more accurate — is still important.”