One metre is plenty

Danger must be set against devastation of economy, says Professor

THE RISK of contracting coronavirus is ‘very small’ even at only one metre, a leading scientist claimed yesterday.

Professor Robert Dingwall, who sits on the Government’s New and Emerging Virus Threats Advisory Group, warned that the current two-metre rule was wreaking ‘economic devastation’.

He said the risks of reducing the distance to one metre or one-and-a-half metres needed to be ‘ set against’ all the other harms caused by the lockdown and shop closures.

Only last week a major Lancet study found that standing more than a metre from someone reduced the chance of virus infection to 3 per cent, compared to 13 per by standing closer than a metre.

The research, part-funded by the World Health Organisation, also concluded that standing two metres away lessened this risk even further to just over 1 per cent.

Professor Dingwall, who is based at the school of social science at Nottingham Trent

University, stressed that the 3 per cent risk infection rule of more than one metre was still ‘very small’.

‘It’s a question of relative risk,’ he told the BBC’s Today Programme. ‘Even the problematic Lancet study that was published last week was saying you are moving from a tiny risk at two metres to a very small risk at one metre.

‘You have to set that against all the other harms that are being done by the economic devastation that is wreaked by the two metre rule, the deaths that will be attributable to the lockdown itself and to the social and economic disruption that it is causing.

‘ Even at one metre it is clear there is a significant margin of safety.

‘The work on transmission in naturally occurring environments suggests that it is very rare for particles to travel much more than half a metre so you have that safety margin built in.

‘The jury is still out on this one but there’s a significant body of opinion that thinks airborne transmission may not be that important compared with what you pick up on your hands and transfer to your own face.’

The UK’s two-metre rule is out of step with the World Health Organisation as well as countries such as France, Denmark and Singapore who all say keeping one metre apart is safe.

Belgium, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and Australia on the other hand impose social distancing guidelines of one-and-a-half metres.

Professor Linda Bauld, an expert in public health at the University of Edinburgh, said the Government should only reduce the rules to one- and- a- half metres, no less.

She added: ‘If they are going to reduce it I can understand from a practical perspective why two metres is difficult but it would be putting more people at greater risk if we go right down to a metre.

‘My personal view would be that there is not insignificant benefit for keeping it at 1.5metres rather than going down to a metre.’

Professor Bauld referred to lab research which had shown that the chances of droplets falling on someone who coughed or sneezed were higher if they were standing less than one-and-ahalf metres away.

But she said: ‘It’s not all about the science, it’s also about politics and the economy.

‘If a pub or a shop goes out of business then people lose their jobs and that has health consequences.’

Last month the medical director of Public Health England, Professor Yvonne Doyle, said the two-metre rule was the ‘ subject of continued investigation’.

She told MPs on the Science and Technology Committee: ‘It’s a learning experience internationally and we are aware of the international differences.’

‘A significant margin of safety’