Social Distancing

Social distancing is the term for communal avoidance during a pandemic. A pandemic occurs when the vaccine is unavailable or delayed and there is insufficient antiviral for the general public.

The best chance for the general public to avoid pandemic influenza infection may be social distancing. The various aspects are:

1. Join a social distance group (SDG). Technically the group may be as small as one person
2. Stay at least three feet away from those not in your SDG
3. Avoid crowds in enclosed spaces such as theatres, malls, schools and grocery stores.
4. Use medical N95 masks if you can’t obey aspects two and three.
5. Wash hands after contact with any object touched by someone outside of your SDG.

Flu facts:

• People can be contagious 24-48 hours before illness.
• People are most contagious when they are ill.
• Adults are contagious for a week after onset
• Children are contagious for two weeks after onset.
• Droplet spread will be within 3 feet of person sneezing or coughing
• Airborne spread can float for an unknown time in an enclosed space.
• Surfaces contaminated with the flu can transmit the flu for 24 hours

Focused measures to increase social distancing include cancellation of public events and closure of recreational facilities. Closures of businesses, schools and public transportation will have potential effectiveness reducing the flu spread, but also a significant impact on the community services.

Reverse quarantine, also called self shielding or snow days, refers to the self-imposed exclusion from infected persons. This technique helped to reduce the transmission of the flu in 1918 and the polio epidemic of the 1950s.

In the 1918 pandemic social distancing is credited with saving many lives. In the early months, the cities that closed schools, churches and theatres during that plague had death rates approximately 50 percent lower than those cities that imposed the measures later or not at all.

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