Bicycles Help Maintain Better Social Distancing

A man wears a mask while riding on mobike past the closed Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, which has been linked to cases of coronavirus, on January 17, 2020 in Wuhan, Hubei province, China. Getty Images
A man wears a mask while riding on mobike past the closed Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, which has been linked to cases of coronavirus, on January 17, 2020 in Wuhan, Hubei province, China. Getty Images
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Bicycles Help Maintain Better Social Distancing

A man wears a mask while riding on mobike past the closed Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, which has been linked to cases of coronavirus, on January 17, 2020 in Wuhan, Hubei province, China. Getty Images
A man wears a mask while riding on mobike past the closed Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, which has been linked to cases of coronavirus, on January 17, 2020 in Wuhan, Hubei province, China. Getty Images

If you have to leave the house for compelling reasons, there is no better option than a bicycle, according to health experts, especially amid the "stay home" recommendation currently echoed by the world's governments as part of the global efforts to curb the spread of coronavirus (Covid-19).

"In this way, people won't face each other at the two-meter danger distance within which the virus can be transmitted," the German News Agency cited statistics expert Gerd Antes as saying.

"I can't but recommend cycling," added Antes who studies the coronavirus transmission methods. The expert sees that the bicycle is a 100 percent isolated transport, as the driver is the only person who touches it, unlike in buses and trains, where myriads of people touch the same buttons, seats, and handles.

Antes, who also heads a medical center at the University of Freiburg, Germany, said: "The bicycle ensures a high level of protection as it allows you to maintain the required safe distance all the time." In addition, by riding the bicycle, you are reducing the number of people using public transport, which gathers a huge number of people at the same time and have a significantly higher risk of infection.

Therefore, if you have an old bicycle abandoned in your garage, clean it and let it accompany you in the coming days.



Brazil Fires Drive Acceleration in Amazon Deforestation

Illegal burning of the Amazon rainforest near Humaita, in the northern Brazilian state of Amazonas, in September 2024. MICHAEL DANTAS / AFP/File
Illegal burning of the Amazon rainforest near Humaita, in the northern Brazilian state of Amazonas, in September 2024. MICHAEL DANTAS / AFP/File
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Brazil Fires Drive Acceleration in Amazon Deforestation

Illegal burning of the Amazon rainforest near Humaita, in the northern Brazilian state of Amazonas, in September 2024. MICHAEL DANTAS / AFP/File
Illegal burning of the Amazon rainforest near Humaita, in the northern Brazilian state of Amazonas, in September 2024. MICHAEL DANTAS / AFP/File

A record fire season in Brazil last year caused the rate of deforestation to accelerate, in a blow to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's pledge to protect the Amazon rainforest, official figures showed Friday.

The figures released by the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), which tracks forest cover by satellite, indicated that deforestation rate between August 2024 and May 2025 rose by 9.1 percent compared to the same period in 2023-2024, said AFP.

And they showed a staggering 92-percent increase in Amazon deforestation in May, compared to the year-ago period.

That development risks erasing the gains made by Brazil in 2024, when deforestation slowed in all of its ecological biomes for the first time in six years.

The report showed that beyond the Amazon, the picture was less alarming in other biomes across Brazil, host of this year's UN climate change conference.

In the Pantanal wetlands, for instance, deforestation between August 2024 and May 2025 fell by 77 percent compared to the same period in 2023-2024.

Presenting the findings, the environment ministry's executive secretary Joao Paulo Capobianco chiefly blamed the record number of fires that swept Brazil and other South American countries last year, whipped up by a severe drought.

Many of the fires were started to clear land for crops or cattle and then raged out of control.