Social distancing | 8 Jun, 2020

Recently, the University of California (UC) Santa Barbara in the United States (US), in one of its new research study report, has termed social distancing of 6 feet insufficient for preventing the spread of Novel coronavirus, in different environmental or atmospheric conditions. Previously, the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended that social distancing should be of 6 feet, and accordingly the government in its notifications stated to maintain the same. But, the recent study says there are high chances of aerosol transmission in the countries of northern hemisphere throughout the summer season. As respiratory droplets more easily evaporate into the aerosol particles, long-range transmission is evident from this. Since India and all of its neighbouring Asian countries fall in the northern hemisphere, an immediate collaborative verification of the aforesaid research work by the experts concerned in the countries of northern hemisphere is highly necessary. If social distancing of 20 feet is really necessary, the governments in these countries would have to design new social distancing norms at the earliest, so that the spread of the virus can be prevented to a significant extent. Otherwise, lockdown as well as social distancing would go in vain.

Bibhash Deva Nath,

Assam Engineering College,

Jalukbari, Guwahati.