You still bump into the stickers from time to time: “Six Feet of Distance.” It’s weird and anachronistic at this point. No one pays any attention anymore. Still, it would be nice to know where this came from. Oddly, we don’t really know.
Anthony Fauci was asked this question this week in U.S. House hearings on the COVID response.
Incredibly, he didn’t really know how this came about.
“It just sort of appeared,” he told the subcommittee, which was an unusual answer since he otherwise said 100 times that he could not remember anything. Here, however, he admits there was never any science behind it.
That’s extremely peculiar.
This rule governed all social interaction for two years and more.
It wrecked every manner of things, made people feel diseased and isolated, made meetings impossible, and gave rise to a whole ritual of interaction that was utterly alien to the normal human way, including elbow bumps and water-gun baptisms.
It was why schools were so delayed in reopening. They could not guarantee that students would stay apart. It’s why airports were so crowded. Everyone was trying to avoid everyone else. It’s why park benches were roped off, why restroom stalls were operating at 50 percent, and why you could not hold weddings and funerals. This stuff was enforced at all levels of society.
And yet here is the “nation’s leading infectious disease scientist,” who took charge of the pandemic response, saying that he has no idea where this idea came from.
Back in March 2021, the New York Times, of all egregious venues, got curious about this too. Reporter Emily Anthes asked around the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) about the mandate and the science behind it.
She quotes Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health.
“It never struck me that six feet was particularly sensical in the context of mitigation. I wish the C.D.C. would just come out and say this is not a major issue.”
She wrote that the origin of the six-foot distancing recommendation is something of a mystery.
“It’s almost like it was pulled out of thin air,” said Linsey Marr, an expert on viral transmission at Virginia Tech University.
The journal Clinical and Infectious Diseases even did a large study comparing six feet and three feet of distance. It was published in March 2021. The authors found no statistically significant difference in infection rates. None. They concluded:
“Lower physical distancing requirements can be adopted in school settings with masking mandates without negatively affecting student or staff safety.”
Nothing happened. We were stuck with six feet.
Once it became an enforced ritual, nothing mattered.
Now we know that not even Anthony Fauci knows where it came from.
But come on. Someone had to order this. Who did it? Some low-level bureaucrat? Someone yet unnamed? Whoever it is knows who he or she is. Lots of people know. But no one is speaking up. It seems like there should be a way to get to the bottom of this.
Most likely, it resulted from nothing but irrational germophobia and a made-up way to satiate that impulse. But consider this: one person’s personal eccentricity thus became a rule for the whole nation and world, without a single study to say nothing of a vote or opinion poll. It was just cray-cray on mega-steroids, and yet some vendors became very rich printing signs and stickers for millions of businesses, churches, airports, and schools around the country.
It probably happened like the sudden mask mandate in St. Louis, Missouri, last week. Some low-level bureaucrats said it should be done and it was done. There was outrage all around, which is very good news. Beautifully, the whole thing was repealed in 24 hours, and the person who caused all this to happen was ridiculed and denounced. How dare she presume to tell everyone else what to do?
Well, that kind of thing ruled us for two years and longer, just bureaucrats making stuff up. Some of it was impractical but it was also very expensive and damaging. For example, the Plexiglas that suddenly went up everywhere actually trapped pathogens into smaller spaces and inhibited ventilation, in contradiction to their other mandates. Arguably, this mandate made the spread worse. It certainly didn’t mitigate the virus.
