"Are masks and distance working for the new variant? It used to be 15 mins near someone who had it."
- I don't think it was a hard and fast rule either for time, distance or place, except that people have taken up these expectations. It is likely that temperature and weather conditions can alter this.
It should be much more difficult to catch outside but this variant is more "transmissible" (in terms of being able to latch onto ACE receptors more easily, typically in the nose). January has been shown to be peak time for all previously known coronaviruses, helped by being inside with larger groups over Christmas, possibly somewhere other than where you live, then returning to your normal area and then going back to work/school and mixing normally after January starts. This pattern will be curtailed this year but not completely suppressed.
Example study quote:
"There was distinct seasonality in the identifications of the viruses. In the first 5 of the 8 years, no surveillance was conducted from June to September. When year-round surveillance was in place in the 2015–2016 through 2017–2018 study years, only 9 (2.5%) of the total 364 coronavirus-associated ARI occurred from June through September. Combined over the 8 years, the number of identifications for each virus increased in December, peaked in January or February, and began to decrease in March (Figure 1). The seasonal similarity between the 4 types is striking, with only the peak aggregate month differing between January and February."
From academic.oup.com/jid/article/222/1/9/5815743
In September the rule of 6 could technically have been legally enforced. 1 person was thought to be averagely 'safe' in terms of the transmission/ numbers game, in groups with no more than 5 others. In workplaces, shops, transport, classrooms, even queues, we are generally looking at time spent in numbers much higher than that now.