This year's coronavirus pandemic has challenged the National Park Service in myriad ways, forcing some managers to limit visitation through reservations, while most if not all have had to learn how to manage visitors and resources with staff limitations. At Crater Lake National Park, it has meant educating visitors that they can't turn the woods into bathrooms and that paddle boarding is not allowed on big blue.

A flareup of Covid-19 in the U.S. Virgin Islands has prompted the territory's governor to ban leisure travel for 30 days, an order likely to throw a wrench into plans to visit Virgin Islands National Park in the coming weeks.

Boat captains hoping to anchor at Buck Island Reef National Monument in the Caribbean will have to seek out some other anchorage for the time being due to the spread of Covid-19 in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Knowing that the nearest hospital was 100 miles away, and that it has just 25 beds and four ventilators, made it relatively easy for Big Bend National Park Superintendent Bob Krumenaker to decide to close his park to the public Thursday after one of his employees was diagnosed with Covid-19.