New research by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology finds the six-foot social distancing rule to be ineffective against contraction of the Covid19 virus.
Chemical engineering and applied mathematics professor Martin Bazant and applied mathematics professor John Bush find individuals are just as likely to contract Covid19 at a social distance of 60 feet as they are at 6 feet – even while masked.
“We argue there really isn’t much of a benefit to the 6-foot rule, especially when people are wearing masks,” Bazant said in an interview. “It really has no physical basis because the air a person is breathing while wearing a mask tends to rise and comes down elsewhere in the room so you’re more exposed to the average background than you are to a person at a distance.”
“The distancing isn’t helping you that much and it’s also giving you a false sense of security because you’re as safe at 6 feet as you are at 60 feet if you’re indoors. Everyone in that space is at roughly the same risk, actually,” he adds.
An overlooked factor, the professors say, and one that plays a bigger role in Covid transmission is time spent indoors. The longer someone spends in the presence of an infected person indoor the greater the chance of transmission, the MIT professors find.
“One’s risk increases linearly with the number of people in a room and duration of the event. Relative risk decreases for large, well-ventilated rooms and increases when the room’s occupants are exerting themselves or speaking loudly,” their report states.
“We need scientific information conveyed to the public in a way that is not just fearmongering but is actually based in analysis,” Bazant said, noting that his work has been through three rounds of peer review, the most any of his work has endured.
Last year at the height of the pandemic we reported on Oxford University professors Carl Heneghan and Tom Jefferson’s analysis of 172 scientific studies in which they found just 5 of them dealt directly with coronavirus infections as related to distance. Only one cited coming within 6 feet of a patient, and that study showed the lack of social distance had no impact.
“Much of the evidence in this current outbreak informing policy is poor quality,” they wrote at the time. “Encouragement and hand-washing are what we need, not formalized rules.”
A University of Dundee study out of Scotland last year found 78% of the risk of infection of Covid19 occurs at a distance below 1 meter (about 3 feet) and there is only an 11% chance of any increased distance making a difference.
Despite such evidence it was only in March of this year the CDC reduced their social distancing requirement from six feet to three feet for incoming elementary, middle and high school students. It is still requiring universal masking.