In an effort to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus in the United States, the National Parks Service (NPS) announced Tuesday that it would be practicing social distancing. While the decision means that all public spaces within parks will remain open, it also means that hourly employees working in these areas either have to opt out of their paycheck or risk getting or spreading the virus.

Most public land, trails and roads at the more than 400 national parks around the country will remain open, as long as people can adhere to being 6 feet apart from each other. Some areas where people cannot maintain social distancing, like visitors centers and shuttles, will be closed. These practices are taking place across the country, from the Everglades to the Grand Canyon.

“The NPS is working with federal, state, and local authorities, while we as a nation respond to this public health challenge,” NPS Deputy Director David Vela said.

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“The health and safety of our visitors, employees, volunteers, and partners is the priority of the National Park Service,” Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt said. “Park superintendents are empowered to modify their operations, including closing facilities and cancelling programs, to address the spread of the coronavirus.”

Several states, including Illinois, New Mexico and Pennsylvania, have already closed state-park systems in response to coronavirus.

A number of individual parks immediately began closing some facilities, Outside reported. In Utah, Zion National Park shut down its shuttle system, instead allowing visitors to drive Zion Canyon Scenic Drive until the main canyon parking lot was full. Two campgrounds in the Florida Everglades were closed, too.

But with parks themselves remaining open, some people must still come to work. And some of those individuals are struggling with the economic and public health ramifications of their decisions.

According to The Guardian:

One low-level park employee who cleans public restrooms wrote: “It’s not a matter of if I get sick but when.” While park employees in management positions are allowed to work from home, many minimum wage-level workers are forced to come in contact with visitors from all over the world in order to earn their paycheck.

Since people are still allowed to be outdoors as long as they’re practicing social distancing, many individuals nationwide opted to head out to their national parks, as a permissible way to share time with family and friends without being indoors— especially during spring break.

“One park employee reported on Facebook that a visitor center at Big Bend National Park was full on Monday with hundreds of people,” The Guardian reported. “Another shared a photo of shoulder to shoulder crowds at Zion National Park waiting to board shuttle buses. (The park closed its shuttle bus system later in the day.)”

Park Service officials advised people who plan to visit parks to maintain a “safe distance” between themselves and others and to wash their hands often to reduce the potential for infection.

But will that be enough to protect National Parks employees and all visitors? The whole notion of staying home and social distancing relies on the idea that if people come in contact with fewer people and surfaces, the virus will have less of an opportunity to spread.

Being outdoors and at a safe distance from people should be a solution to that worry. But if there are employees coming into contact with people and their waste around the park, that could defeat the purpose.

One National Parks employee highlights the issue:

“Politicians never go to the frontlines themselves but they often decide to put others in harm’s way,” said Tom Myers, who has worked as a physician at Grand Canyon national park’s clinic for 30 years. “In this case it’s the park’s working poor, all in the name of maintaining the economy. It’s shameful.”