I see comments from time to time which suggest the concept of “social distancing” as a pandemic response is based on science. Nothing could be further from the truth, as this article, shared here for the second time, explains.
Social distancing was a plausible-sounding, but untested, non-peer reviewed, hypothesis that became part of our national strategy via President Bush’s original pandemic response plan, which both the Obama and Trump administrations substantially implemented to counter viral threats.
The scientific “truth” of social distancing takes on new relevance now with the reported spread of Covid within the White House. Some critics have even leapt to the conclusion that the President and the White House staff ignored their own public health policy guidelines to social distance properly. But given that social distancing was a half-baked idea to begin with, it is more likely the coronavirus made its way to the White House just as any other virus naturally might.
I’m intrigued by the possibility that social distancing protocols may actually and inadvertently be conducive to viral transmission. A virus wouldn’t have to be very contagious or deadly to convert shelter-in-place spots into superspreading incubators, for example. Or, suppression of normal herd immunity processes might, in fact, accelerate virus transmission.
The only thing that seems clear about social distancing as a pandemic response is that we’ve all just been exposed to a massive social/biological experiment. I’m not complaining, just saying the findings have yet to be determined.