“I’ve been crossing the street,” said Carolyn Cannuscio, a social epidemiologist at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Public Health Initiatives. “I know that offends people sometimes. Someone called me out the other day and said, ‘I’m not going to give you the virus!’ I said, ‘I’m sorry, I’m an epidemiologist.’”

Other experts I spoke to felt the risk of merely passing by someone on the street is minimal, but that the more contact you come into with people — no matter where it is — the higher the risk. We know one way the virus spreads is through respiratory droplets that are expelled when an infected person coughs or sneezes.

““[This] can also include laughing and singing,” Patel said. “All of these actions are essentially expelling much of our lung volume when we do them. In the same context, heavy breathing while exercising would do the same as the aforementioned and thus, could also cause the spread of a virus. There is no specific study that shows all of this; however, it is extrapolated from numerous studies on virology and respirology.”