Two-metre rule will stay in place despite doubts over effectiveness
‘I urge the Government to recognise that two metres makes managing these things incredibly difficult’
DOWNING STREET has insisted there are no plans to drop the two-metre distancing rule, despite one of its own scientific advisers raising questions over the measure.
Prof Robert Dingwall, a member of the Government’s Nervtag virus advisory group, told the BBC that World Health Organisation guidance of one metre was “sensible”, and that “evidence for a greater distance than one metre has always been very fragile”.
The professor of sociology at Nottingham Trent University added: “The WHO recommends a one-metre distance. Denmark has adopted it since the beginning of last week. If you probe around the recommendations of distance in Europe, you will find that a lot of countries have also gone for this really on the basis of a better understanding of the scientific evidence around the possible transmission of infection.”
Prof Dingwall warned that “academic silos” meant more recent studies, such as that carried out at Brunel University London, were not being factored in. The issue had not even come up in Nervtag discussions, he noted.
The Brunel study “points to quite a clear curve in terms of the fall-off in infection, and one metre is quite a sensible break point in that,” he said.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader, called on the Government to rethink, saying it would make “an enormous difference” to businesses and commuting as the country started to reopen. “I urge the Government to recognise that two metres makes managing these things incredibly difficult,” he told The Daily Telegraph. “This would help open up the retail and hospitality industry enormously.”
Boris Johnson’s spokesman said he was “not aware of any plans” to drop the measure.
“The advice provided at the outset was that two metres was a sensible and safe distance to adopt,” the spokesman said. “That is what we have done and I am not aware of any plans to change it.”