WASHINGTON POST • March 29, 2020
A rich scientific literature has documented the outdoors’ physical and mental health benefits and found more reasons than ever to spend time outdoors. While limiting numbers of people crowded into indoor spaces is crucial for slowing coronavirus spread, that need not apply to the outdoors. If our nation’s parks were to join the list of shuttered societal institutions I suspect the health toll in terms of heightened anxiety, depression, addiction, suicides and deaths of despair – already likely to rise from the massive economic downturn we’re experiencing – would be catastrophic. ~ Gabriel Popkin, science journalist