The COVID-19 pandemic may have altered visitation patterns to parks, with potential effects on human health. Little is known about park use early in the pandemic, how park availability influenced use, and whether park visits accelerated COVID-19 spread. Using weekly cell phone location data for 620 U.S. counties, we show park visits decreased by an average 26% between March 15 and May 9, 2020. Net of weekly trends, park visits were 2.2% lower when stay-at-home orders were in effect, yet increased by 8.4% with school closures and 4.4% with business closures. Park visits decreased less during the pandemic in counties where park availability was high. Levels of park visits were not associated with COVID-19 growth rate or incidence in the following weeks. Thus, parks served as recreation and leisure outlets when schools and businesses closed, especially where parks were more available, with no evidence of park use increasing COVID-19 spread.

COVID-19 大流行可能改变了公园的访问模式，对人类健康有潜在影响。人们对大流行早期的公园使用情况、公园可用性如何影响使用以及公园访问是否加速 COVID-19 传播知之甚少。使用美国 620 个县的每周手机位置数据，我们显示在 2020 年 3 月 15 日至 5 月 9 日期间，公园访问量平均下降了 26%。从每周趋势来看，居家令下的公园访问量下降了 2.2%影响，但因学校关闭而增加 8.4%，因企业关闭而增加 4.4%。在大流行期间，公园可用性较高的县的公园访问量减少了。在接下来的几周内，公园访问量与 COVID-19 增长率或发病率无关。因此，当学校和企业关闭时，公园充当了娱乐和休闲场所，