What Does Social Distancing Actually Mean?
3 min readMar 29, 2020
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Social distancing is non-pharmaceutical infection prevention and control intervention implemented to avoid/decrease contact between those who are infected with a disease-causing pathogen and those who are not, so as to stop or slow down the rate and extent of disease transmission in a community. This eventually leads to a decrease in spread, morbidity and mortality due to the disease.
One way to slow the spread of viruses is social distancing (also called physical distancing).
The more space between you and others, the harder it is for the virus to spread.
Other examples of social distancing that allow you to avoid larger crowds or crowded spaces are:
- Working from home instead of at the office
- Closing schools or switching to online classes
- Visiting loved ones by electronic devices instead of in-person
- Cancelling or postponing conferences and large meetings
Keep in touch with others
You can still keep in touch with loved ones while you practise social distancing:
- use video chats
- schedule phone calls to chat with others you would normally see
- use online groups to interact
