This web posting by an authority suggests that the kind of contact you describe is very low risk.

https://www.erinbromage.com/post/the-risks-know-them-avoid-them?fbclid=IwAR3PwQ0u2UikkCHpIRr7D2a0zdYWp6TBWKGoV_S8ercAcBIiEBJNoVo-tqY

We can't change the behavior of others, but we can step off the trail ourselves if needed. I suspect the other will understand and make a greater effort themselves.

On Sunday most people (probably 90%) in East Rock Park were not wearing masks.

Do you have to wear a mask if you are outside ?

Be careful when approaching people they may have a weapon

How much should I worry about contamination if I go outside to walk the dog or exercise?

Your chances of catching the virus when you go outdoors is extremely low, provided you’re keeping a safe distance from others.
“Outdoors is safe, and there is certainly no cloud of virus-laden droplets hanging around,” said Lidia Morawska, professor and director of the International Laboratory for Air Quality and Health at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia.
“Firstly, any infectious droplets exhaled outside would be quickly diluted in outdoor air, so their concentrations would quickly become insignificant,” Dr. Morawska said. “In addition, the stability of the virus outside is significantly shorter than inside. So outside is not really a problem, unless if we are in a very crowded place — which is not allowed now anyway. It is safe to go for a walk and jog and not to worry about the virus in the air, and there is no need for an immediate washing of the clothes.”

This matches information in the article I posted on 11 May. Outdoors is safer.

Gaboury...a very informative article. thank you

In the comments section of the article, the author says with regard to being outdoors on a trail: "But there are many caveats. Some people release huge amounts of infectious material, others very little (that is assuming they are infected). Same with infectious dose, it’s different for different people."

The governor and mayor have issued orders, backed up by the consensus of public health experts: keep 6 ft, and if you can't then wear a mask. I have also seen quotes by experts saying the risk is low outdoors, but that doesn't change 1) the orders by the governor and mayor, and 2) many experts also say the low risk outdoors would be even LOWER if we all keep at least 6 ft whenever possible and wear masks.

Do you want to be within 6 ft of someone who is coughing, sneezing, blowing their nose, outdoors? There is current research backed up by hard data that talking emits as many virus particles as a cough.

Just because a scientist says something is true, that doesn't make it true without hard data to back it up. You can find people with PhD's who say racism doesn't exist or the Earth is flat. The hard data for outdoor airborne transmission of the virus doesn't exist yet, the risk hasn't been established. But there is hard data that risk is lowered with distance and masks.

Don't we have a right to use the trails/sidewalks with the lowest possible risk? To repeat, on the trails it is impossible to keep 6 ft!

Gramsciam further into the same aricle
Rasmussen and Kasten both noted that a perfect sequence of events has to happen for a virus to jump from an infected passerby outdoors to you. The particles — enough of them to be able to kickstart an infection — have to spray out of the passerby with enough force to make their way over to you. The virus inside the particles has to survive while sunlight, humidity, wind, and other forces work to decay and disperse them. The particles have to land right in your upper throat or respiratory tract — or on your hands, which you then use to touch your eyes, nose, or mouth — and they have to get past all the barriers to infection in the respiratory system, like nose hairs and mucus. Then they have to dock up with your cells’ ACE-2 receptors and use them to enter the cells.
This is a pretty arduous sequence to execute properly, and it’s even more difficult for the virus if everyone involved — say, both you and the runner in front of you — is wearing a mask. You can see why, if you’re standing outdoors several feet away from an infected person, the virus might have a hard time making its way over to you at a high enough dose to actually infect you.Rasmussen and Kasten both noted that a perfect sequence of events has to happen for a virus to jump from an infected passerby outdoors to you. The particles — enough of them to be able to kickstart an infection — have to spray out of the passerby with enough force to make their way over to you. The virus inside the particles has to survive while sunlight, humidity, wind, and other forces work to decay and disperse them. The particles have to land right in your upper throat or respiratory tract — or on your hands, which you then use to touch your eyes, nose, or mouth — and they have to get past all the barriers to infection in the respiratory system, like nose hairs and mucus. Then they have to dock up with your cells’ ACE-2 receptors and use them to enter the cells.
This is a pretty arduous sequence to execute properly, and it’s even more difficult for the virus if everyone involved — say, both you and the runner in front of you — is wearing a mask. You can see why, if you’re standing outdoors several feet away from an infected person, the virus might have a hard time making its way over to you at a high enough dose to actually infect you.
How many particles do you have to inhale to launch an infection?
One thing we’d all love to know about Covid-19 is what constitutes the infectious dose — that is, how many live virus particles you need to inhale at once before they kickstart an infection. Unfortunately, scientists just don’t have the answer yet.
“As animal model data continues to come out, we’ll have a much better idea about estimated ranges of infectious dose,” Rasmussen said.

In the meantime, some experts are estimating the infectious dose for Covid-19 from previous coronaviruses that have infected humans, like Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS).
To develop a MERS infection, the number of virus particles you need to inhale is somewhere in the thousands, perhaps as high as 10,000. Willem van Schaik, a professor of microbiology at the University of Birmingham, estimates that to develop Covid-19, that number is lower, perhaps in the high hundreds or low thousands.
That’s just an educated guess, but it’s reasonable to assume it takes fewer particles to launch an infection in the case of Covid-19 than MERS, because Covid-19 is much more transmissible. Each person with Covid-19 infects two or three others on average, while for MERS that number is less than one.
Although we don’t know exactly how many particles it takes — 900? 1,500? — the point to bear in mind here is that you’re not going to contract Covid-19 if a single particle falls on you. One of the problems with the Belgian-Dutch exercise “study” is that its recommendations seem to be based on the idea that any exposure is too much.
Obviously, you don’t want to walk through someone’s fresh sneeze or cough cloud, and if this accidentally happens you should go home, change, and shower. But if you’re worrying about how many particles a passerby is generating with their exhalations, it may help to know that a recent study managed to quantify how many virus particles were detectable after patients who had Covid-19 and who were not wearing masks coughed five times into a petri dish at a distance of roughly 8 inches.
The scientists detected 363 virus particles on average per 1 ml of petri dish. That seems like a lot, but again, that was at a distance of 8 inches. If you’re 6 feet away (72 inches), much of that will disperse before you can inhale it — particularly if you’re outdoors, where factors like increased distance, decreased duration of exposure, and improved air ventilation are all working in your favor.
It may also help to know about two new studies suggesting that most Covid-19 transmission happens indoors, not outdoors. In China, a study of 318 outbreaks found that transmission occurred outdoors in only one of them. In Japan, a study found that “the odds that a primary case transmitted Covid-19 in a closed environment was 18.7 times greater compared to an open-air environment.” Note, however, that both of these are preprint papers (not yet peer reviewed).
An understanding of infectious dose, combined with an understanding of transmissibility as laid out above, should also help calm excessive levels of worry about picking up the virus from objects like mail or groceries. Remember that to kickstart an illness, you have to have enough virus particles to get an infection going, and it’s got to be live, infectious virus, not just dead RNA (genetic material that won’t harm you). The latter will simply fall apart after enough time on inert objects — up to 24 hours on cardboard and up to three days on plastic and stainless steel.
“Viral RNA does not imply the presence of infectious virus,” Kasten explained. “The virus, without host cells and a bit of moisture to keep it temporarily going, can fall apart, leaving bits of its RNA lying around like bleached bones in the sun. A researcher can come along with PCR [polymerase chain reaction, a common method in molecular biology] and detect the RNA, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they detected infectious virus.”

So, when you see a headline that seems frightening — for example, one saying that researchers found coronavirus on a cruise ship 17 days after passengers disembarked — just remember that doesn’t necessarily mean it was live, infectious virus.
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“The good news is that we do know that while the virus can persist in the environment on different surfaces and in different environments, it does lose infectivity over time,” Rasmussen said. “So if you inhale a large number of total [virus particles] but only a small number of them are infectious, you are at much lower risk of actually getting infected.”
None of this is to say you should be cavalier when you venture into the outside world. Washing your hands, avoiding touching your face, being diligent about physical distancing, wearing masks in public, and disinfecting communal surfaces — all these things likely reduce transmission risk, and we should keep doing them, Rasmussen said. But she also said she feels fine about taking a walk with her husband outdoors.
Psychologically, different people have different levels of tolerance for risk. For some people, any risk that can be minimized, should be, no matter how small. For others, the recommended 6-foot distance, with masks, and the known decay of both the amount and the infectiousness of the virus — that’s good enough.
“The people who are 26-footers should know, though, that the 6-footers are not being foolhardy or endangering others unnecessarily,” Kasten said.
Asked if she could offer a way to assess the risk of various activities in terms we can easily wrap our minds around, Kasten said to consider the difference in the risk between taking a stroll through the park on an even path versus climbing up a steep cliff face.
“Sure, you could slip, fall, strike your head, and die on that path in the park. Likewise, you could free-solo successfully to the top of El Capitan. But most of us would accept the risk of the stroll and not accept [the risk of] dangling from the cliff,” she said. “Breathing in someone’s sneeze cloud, close by, without a mask — that’s the cliff face. Jogging several feet away, or getting the mail — that’s the park.”

Active citizen,

Your last post is 1,492 words long. Are there any key statements on which you would like us to focus?

We can quote studies all we want, but the basic facts are that wearing masks and keeping our distance will reduce the spread of the virus. If a huffing and puffing jogger is facing me and passes within a few feet of my face, they are endangering my health and those of everyone else they encounter. If there is a chance that you will be in the presence of other people, wear a mask and try to keep six feet away.

"Studies" are science. That's where all "basic facts" come from. Active Citizen is just trying to drill down to understand what the risks really are.
And the trails are barely 6 feet wide. I see more groups of walkers 2 abreast making it impossible to be 6' away than I do joggers in pairs or larger groups. Why pick on runners?

Gaboury, thumbs up

BTW: The science (i.e., basic facts) tells us that proximity and exposure duration are co-equal risks. So walkers should probably speed up (i.e., run) when they pass each other.

This might sound weird, but when I'm walking outside, if I see a person walking toward me, I hold my breath when they are about 20 feet away and then I don't breathe again until they are 20 feet past me. The whole duration never takes more than about 7 to 10 seconds.

Let's try to keep each other healthy and contain this virus. Whether you are walking, running, biking, or hanging out in your yard, wear a mask and try to keep six feet away from other people. We can get lost in the details of various studies, but wearing masks and maintaining distance will help keep people healthy.

Roger, wearing a mask while running, walking, and hanging out in your yard is absolutely, positively ridiculous. It is this kind of mentality that causes hysteria, fear, toilet paper shortages, free gov't handouts, Stalinistic closure of businesses, etc.. Wash your hands and stay away from people who are sick. If you're sick, stay home.
My friends and family have not socially distanced from each other, haven't worn a mask except for when mandated (grocery shopping and work) and I will be darned if you think I will put a mask on in my yard or while walking the farmington trail because the uneducated mass of sheep are afraid.

Just my 2 cents , i agree with M,M. , absolutely ridiculous ..But once i was near a person who actually has or had Covid , that persons coughing was uncontrollable and must have been hard on the lungs and throat , i ran , the person was wearing a top notch mask that didn't appear capable of raining in the contagion ..Yes outside is a different story

Someone can have Covid but not have any symptoms and in turn affect others. There is a chance you can get if you are outside

According to today's CNN update (May 27, 2020), the state of CT has the fourth highest infection rate and the third highest death rate per capita, by state, in the U.S. (https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2020/health/coronavirus-us-maps-and-cases/). According to the state of CT (https://portal.ct.gov/coronavirus), New Haven County has the second highest infection rate per capita, only exceeded by Fairfield County, in the state.

According to another CNN article published or updated today: "We now have really clear evidence that wearing masks works -- it's probably a 50% protection against transmission," Dr. Chris Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, or IHME, at the University of Washington, told CNN late Tuesday.”

"And so, what happens in the next month or two is very much in the hands of how people respond."

The responsible thing to do is wear a mask and stay at least six feet away from other people when possible. A minor inconvenience for each of is better for all of us. It is not about being a “sheep,” it is about trying to keep the community healthy.

Here's the data that I have been following and plotting. We were headed toward zero new cases, but now we are reopening. There is a time lag for new infections to present and be reported. I hope there is not a resurgence.

Roger, interesting "stats" that have no context in regard to my statement. As an ICU nurse working in a COVID isolation unit I am fully aware of how this virus spreads. Again, no mask while outdoors for me, I'll leave that to the herd.

Everything is ambiguous here. People who advocate the universal wearing of masks now argue that masks are traditionally widely used in Asian countries, and therefore the new coronavirus infection is not spreading so actively there. On the charts, cited as evidence, it is clear that in such countries fewer people ill.

XOX
https://ingeniousguru.com

see above