by
Les May
THERE is
likely to be an announcement about changing the advice on ‘social
distancing’ within the next few days. At present it is recommended
that we remain at least
two metres away from anyone else who is not a member of our immediate
family. Schools have had to reorganise their layout and time tables
to accommodate this and it has effectively meant that pubs,
restaurants etc would not be viable businesses even if they were
allowed to open.
So
what impact could a reduction in social distancing have on the spread
of Covid 19 disease? The likelihood of picking up an infection is
greater if one is closer to someone else, but it is also increased if
you are close to more people.
At first sight it might seem
that reducing the recommended distance to one metre would double the
number of people you were likely to encounter. In fact it would
quadruple the number. Reducing the recommended distance to one and a
half metres would mean you were likely to meet just over twice as
many people, two and a quarter as many to be exact.
It
will be interesting to see if the
humanities graduates who dominate the media can do the sums.
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