By now we can probably all agree that wearing a mask while indoors is a no brainer. But maybe you’ve found yourself out hiking on the trails or biking down the street and wondered—should you mask up when you cross paths with other people, even when you’re outdoors? Science shows that the risk of contracting COVID-19 outdoors is low, but that doesn’t keep Bill Nye the Science Guy from masking up.
In an interview with Conde Nast Traveler, Nye says that if you’re going on a hike on a fairly empty trail, you should wear your mask when someone approaches within 30 feet. On a busier trail, says Nye, you should wear your mask the entire time you’re hiking. “If you’re finding it hard to breathe, slow down,” he told Conde Nast Traveler. “Dying is a big price to pay for trying to keep up with what you might call scout’s pace.”
Nye applies the same rule to biking. “When I’m biking on the flat of Ventura Boulevard here in Los Angeles, where all these cars are parked and people are constantly coming out of restaurants with takeout food, I wear the mask the whole time,” he says. When biking by houses, Nye says he keeps his mask on, too, and only when he reaches a rural area where people are scarce does he let the mask drop. Still, if he does pass another person, he says he wears his mask within 100 feet of them as he bikes by.
Nye also says that if he’s stopped at a traffic light on his bike and a car pulls up beside him with the windows down, he wears a mask then, too. “Your enemies are not lions and tigers and bears,” Nye told the magazine. “They, of course, are troublesome. Sure, they’re spectacular. A shark attack is spectacular. A bear attack is noteworthy. But your real enemies are germs and parasites. That’s what’s gonna kill you.”
Photo courtesy of Getty Images by Marcos Calvo
