>>11525268>the virus can travel up to 27 ftThere's two important questions to ask here:
-How likely is it to travel this far?
-How much of the viral load is still there?
The concentration of a cloud like that goes down exponentially as distance increases. Say for example infectivity is halved every foot. Getting coofed on at point blank range might have a 100% infection rate, adding 1' lowers it to 50%, 2' to 25%, 3' to 12.5 and so on. This means that those first 3 feet are far more effective than adding even 5 feet after that. Ideally everyone would just isolate completely in solitary cells, but as that is not feasible guidelines need to exist that are both meaningful and attainable. Tell people to stay 27' apart and they'll just say 'fuck off' and don't bother with any social distancing, which is worse.
It's unscientific but it is also a guideline. It's like the recommendation to take 10000 steps per day - it's not really based on anything, but it promotes useful habits as moving around is generally speaking better than not moving around.
