Lindsey TheisWhen it comes to getting sick with COVID-19, you might be thinking about this, and we have too. Justin Dexter asked: "I go on a bike ride with friends, what's the risk of getting COVID- 19?"
We asked the experts: Katie Cary, vice president of infection prevention for HCA Continental Division; Dr. Nipunie Rajapakse, a pediatric infectious diseases physician at the Mayo Clinic; and Dr. Irfan N. Hafiz, infectious disease physician and Northwest Region chief medical officer at Northwestern Medicine.
Their take: Contracting COVID-19 from going on a bike ride is low-risk.
"You're really not in close proximity there. So that's probably a low-risk activity over all. It's just before and after the bike ride, or if you're taking a break, you want to make sure that you are keeping some safe distance there," Hafiz said.
"If you're going to go on a bike ride with your friends, it's just important to know what the risk factors are your friends have, as well if they are showing any symptoms," Cary said.
"Even if someone is ill, there's a lot of dilution that happens in the outdoors as air currents disperse any virus that someone might cough or sneeze out. Secondly, on a bike, you're pretty much guaranteed to be at least six feet away from someone. And so that additional distance or kind of built-in physical distancing that occurs when you're on a bike decreases your risks as well," Rajapaske said.
If you have a question about your risk, send us a video to whatstherisk@newsy.com. You can see answers to other questions here.
