Can you really catch it from a fleeting meeting in the outdoors?

[DoubleAction]

Dont get me wrong, I shall follow all the instructions, which as I understand it allow going outside with people from your household but parks have been closed here today. People taking trying to make the best of things and enjoy some sunshine have apparently not been practicing social distancing.

Is passing someone on a footpath really a risk? It seems unlikely to me that any illness can be transmitted like that.

So how is it going to work in schools then with almost all the staff and almost all the students going in? Including teenagers who have been busy socialising?
If it can be caught by a fleeting moment within 2m, what about classrooms where you are breathing the same air for hours?

Yes Lifesave! Its only a week or so since we were told 266 thousand people gathering was Ok because it was outside, now people are getting hysterical about walking outdoors.

I don't know which is right, I suspect somewhere between the two.

I've had proper flu (the kind where you wouldn't pickup a £100 note, ha!)
a few times in my life.
As a teenager, didn't have a boyfriend, never hugged girlfriends, my family never hugged each other. As a single person, working in an office, never hugging anyone. Not even using public transport the last time.
As a parent, hugging my DS, but he never got it. (He's had "flu" probably twice, both times I didn't get it.)

On none of these occasions would I be able to say who I'd got it from. Similar story with colds....

What I'm getting at, is these things spread around in the air, on things you touch.

So yes, I think you could catch it in a supermarket or strolling down the street.

Sorry can I just point out the term is infectious not contagious.
Infectious=airborne
Contagious=contact

There's two issues:

1. Government advice has been wishy washy and changing
2. Some people's sheer lack of common sense

Common sense says "we're being advised to remain 2m apart and avoid all non-essential travel and social gatherings so I should probably do that as much as practically possible because I'm sensible and accept some disruption will occur in these uncertain times".
"I'm a key worker but DP is able to work from home. The guidance on school opening says we are technically eligible to send DC, but we won't because it also says that school is last resort and if children can be safe at home they should be at home to reduce the spread of the virus in schools"

Lack of common sense results in:
"If they've not shut the shops and are still letting people go to the supermarket then surely it's fine for me to go to a friend's/nip to the shop for some new clothes / go to the gym".
"Schools are closed but I'm sort of a key worker and DP is at home, but he has a big important job where he couldn't possibly manage to supervise his own children like millions of other parents, so we shall push to send our children in anyway because technically it's my right to and anyone who says otherwise clearly hates doctors and nurses" (person actually does an obscure role that is only tenuously linked to a key worker group).

I think it’s really tricky to just go out for a walk. I tried today with my children and they sat on a bench, climbed on a gate. I was constantly reminding them not to touch things, we don’t even realise we are doing it 🤷🏼‍♀️ I am really thinking about whether we leave the house at all - but staying in worries me too. We certainly won’t go further than ten mins from our house, and not near shops.

I feel like the wind blows the droplets into my face even when two metres apart on a breezy day like today. I hope that isn't right.

It is not just coughing and sneezing that passes on the virus. You inhale Oxygen & Nitrogen and exhale Nitrogen, Water Vapour, Carbon Dioxide (and Coronavirus). Exhale on a cold window, mirror or your spectacles and you will see the water condense - this could be laced with virus, and you exhale all the time. If you think a face mask offers protection, try exhaling on a cold window whilst wearing it to see if condensation appears.

Consider a smoker exhaling just once in a room in your house. You can see and smell the smoke reach every corner of the room in seconds, and exhaled virus laden water vapour does the same - settling on surfaces or being inhaled by others. Keeping 2m away, but not downwind, from someone outdoors offers good protection (as it would from a smoker). Keeping 2m away indoors offers only limited safety for a short time (as it would if they were smoking).

Stay safe people!

So those supermarket queues really are risky and no one's closing those down.

You can't see the difference between meeting people in the park and going shopping? I'll give you a clue - PEOPLE HAVE TO EAT OR THEY STARVE AND DIE FFS.

SFS

FFS, they dont have to stand in crowds queuing, there must be better ways to manage that.

“Act as if you are the virus carrier - avoid all contact and distance yourself at all times. “

Was the message on Facebook this morning. Perhaps not such a bad idea to think this way..?

DoubleAction, no they don't need to queue in crowds, the U.K. needs to get organised! In many European countries supermarket queues are being controlled. Only a certain number of people allowed inside at one time. Checkouts and queues outside have markers to show you where to stand to stay 1.5 metres apart, and staff managing the queues.

Lots of circumstances coming together to have more people out than usual, an unusually nice day, mothers' day, families who had already made plans to meet up in restaurants finding something else to do and of course everything else being closed. People have tried to do the right thing just too many of them at once!

Well, that's the whole fucking point, isn't it?

We have to have a radical rethink of how we relate to each other. In the physical sense, keeping that absolute distance. It's alien to everything we know. And it's such a massive thing that we haven't got our heads around it - to our detriment!

Our heads are going to have to have a 180* wobble and respect that we are all in this together.

People will naturally need some time to digest it all.

Time is what we don't have.