Re: remember covid?

On 16/03/2025 14:42, bitrex wrote:

On 3/16/2025 10:26 AM, john larkin wrote:

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https://archive.is/CQzbl
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 "Remember the rule that we should all stay at least six feet apart? “It sort of just appeared,” Fauci said during a preliminary interview for the subcommittee hearing, adding that he “was not aware of any studies” that supported it."

It was a reasonable guess at the time that standing any closer together than 2m (ROW) risked breathing in more than enough of what someone in front of your had just exhaled along with contaminated water droplets.
Locally we settled on about 3m (10') apart (and totally ignored the UK government's silly no more than 3 people rule since you invariably met other couples or families sometimes more than one at a time).
It wasn't entirely without foundation. 100um droplets fall out of the air before they get more than a couple of metres away from you.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abd9149
That was mostly prior knowledge from other infectious diseases like flu which the initial pandemic response was based on. A lot more research was done into it as a result of Covid-19.
I can smell vapers from about 10m behind them so I always wondered just how effective it was as a strategy. However, I managed to avoid catching Covid for over 2 years by following those guidelines.
Back then they didn't know that Covid was so infective that it was effectively airborne and only air changes could ameliorate that.

Was anyone really walking around thinking "Well, thank God someone did the research the last time we had a global pandemic to find the optimal distance was 6 feet and not 7.8"?

The optimum distance was as far apart as possible which is why when things got seriously out of control we had lockdowns.
Japan probably made the best fist of a difficult situation.
(still a surprising proportion wearing masks at indoor venues today)
--
Martin Brown