Opinion and online article: It is healthy to be outside. It all needs to be done in accordance with the CDC guidelines. We need to prepare for the new normal. We need to maintain physical and mental health. The struggle with cabin fever is real.

A very good read (that I will allow to make most of my points for me), see Business Insider - April 25, 2020 - Stop shaming people for going outside. The risks are generally low, and the benefits are endless, by Anna Medaris Miller.

Her opening example:

Don McCammon recently went for a run while wearing a mask in an uncrowded area of Orlando, Florida. The 40-year-old triathlete stayed not just 6 but closer to 15 feet away from any passersby.  

That didn't spare him from criticism, though. 

"I had a walker yell at me that I shouldn't be running during a pandemic," McCammon said. But the infectious-disease expert Anthony Fauci, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and New York City leaders and public-health officials have said they go on regular jogs.

We can find numerous examples here in our Palmetto Bay community, both out in public as well as in full public view of social media. Far too many people are quick to judge and cast stones at those who they feel are not adhering to what they judge to be proper.

When communities issued shelter-in-place orders, people reasonably interpreted it literally, even though the fine print almost always said people could, and even should, go outside to exercise. And when staying home became a point of pride, some mental-health professionals said people were missing the point: Mother Earth is home too. 

"Our research has found that nature is not an amenity — it's a necessity," Marc Berman, a psychologist at the University of Chicago who studies how environmental factors can affect the brain and behavior, said in a UChicago News story. "We need to take it seriously.

I have made numerous examples of how people are coping with the closure of schools, gyms, working from home - where do you go? Fortunately in Miami, we have the beautiful outdoors.  Cabin Fever is real. See Healthline -  

What is cabin fever?In popular expressions, cabin fever is used to explain feeling bored or listless because you’ve been stuck inside for a few hours or days. But that’s not the reality of the symptoms.

Instead, cabin fever is a series of negative emotions and distressing sensations people may face if they’re isolated or feeling cut off from the world.

These feelings of isolation and loneliness are more likely in times of social distancing, self-quarantining during a pandemic, or sheltering in place because of severe weather.

As I have also mentioned previously, many have anyone taken notice of the sudden explosion of people cycling in our community. I am not talking about the MAMILs, I am referring to families and more casual riders. I am now seeing a huge increase of high school / college age people on bikes - and I wonder if they are riding because you can travel together separately on a bike, all the time maintaining the social distancing that you lose by piling into the same car.

Outdoor activity is good! Stay connected to our community. So long as the social distancing is maintained.