Social Distancing

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Anchor lead: Science is behind the need to keep your distance from other people, Elizabeth Tracey reports

It’s not easy keeping your distance from others, especially as infectious disease experts are saying that’s a minimum of six feet of distance. Yet Lisa Maragakis, director of infection control at Johns Hopkins Hospital, says that’s based on research looking at how COVID-19 is spread.

Maragakis:  We know that the virus can spread through large respiratory droplets that can travel approximately six feet when someone coughs or sneezes. Therefore social distancing, or separating ourselves by at least six feet during our daily activities is an important way to protect ourselves and each other from the virus. Models have shown that if a community practices social distancing it has a significant effect on reducing transmission of the virus, and the more people who do it the better the effect.  :31

Maragakis urges everyone to adopt this practice as their contribution to COVID-19 mitigation efforts. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.