It’s hot out there.

Southwestern Pennsylvania is in the middle of a heat wave that will see 90-degree highs all week.

Seems like the perfect time to get outside and do something fun, right? But ugh, there it is again. The coronavirus pandemic. Just sitting there, ruining everything. We have to social distance. We have to wear masks. We have to stay inside.

Wait a minute. Do we really?

Gov. Tom Wolf’s exhortations to keep our distance to lower the spread of covid-19 and Allegheny County’s push to close down restaurant and bar gatherings have been about keeping people safe.

That’s great. What about keeping people sane?

The pandemic is a big deal, and in 32 states — including Pennsylvania — infection numbers are on the rise again after many states loosened the lockdown reins.

But does that mean we are couchbound? No. It doesn’t. And we know it doesn’t because the state is keeping our greatest resources open.

Pennsylvania is a crazy quilt of state parks, state forests and national forests, not to mention municipal parks, and that’s just the public land. There’s water, too.

The state has 1.28 trillion square feet of ground and just 12.8 million people, which leaves plenty of room to spread out.

The spreading out is what is important.

In states like California and Florida, beaches were closed over the holiday weekend, not because swimming in salt water or dozing on the sand are the kind of activities that spread viruses, but because packed venues with barely enough room for a beach towel create that danger.

On Monday, both states saw beaches reopen because traffic on a weekday morning was likely to be lower but still gave people the opportunity to get some exercise, some sun and some space.

We have the ability to do the same. We can hike and bike. We can swim and kayak. We can camp and climb and fish. We can get time to ourselves, or time with our families but not right on top of each other the way we have been at home for weeks on end.

We don’t just need the movement and entertainment. We need the relief of release.

It’s on us all to do it responsibly, because, yes, there is a way to do the great outdoors wrong and make it a close-contact, unsafe activity that could set things back. Remember how spring break in Florida was seen as the hub of infections that spread when kids went home? Let’s not do that.

But yes, grab your bike or lace up your shoes. Keep your mask handy but head outside and let yourself go — safely.

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