Social distancing has been so important during the COVID-19 pandemic. Staying six feet apart from your family, friends, and even strangers, can help to make a difference to hopefully overcome the pandemic. You can stay socially distant almost anywhere, and with the holidays approaching, it is important now more than ever to protect the ones you love, especially your elderly relatives where the virus could be deadly to them.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic started back in March, mandated mask wearing has been implemented in many public shops, restaurants, and even on public transportation, along with the six feet social distancing rule. While wearing a mask helps to prevent you from becoming at risk for COVID-19, social distancing also helps to maintain a safe distance from people who may have potentially come in contact with the virus. The question is though, what else can you do to keep yourself safe while socially distancing? Well, we are here to answer these questions for you to keep you and your loved ones safe!
What is Social Distancing?
What does it do and how does it help you and the people around you?
Social distancing, otherwise known as physical distancing, helps to slow the spread of viruses from person to person by standing at least six feet apart. This oftentimes is most common and is recommended to be used whenever you’re around people that are not within your household. In both indoor and outdoor spaces, it is essential to stay six feet apart, which also comes out to two arms’ lengths away in order to protect yourself and the person that you are talking, or interacting with to stay safe from contracting COVID-19.
The COVID-19 virus can easily spread when people are not socially distancing because of tiny droplets that can be launched in the air due to someone coughing, sneezing, or even talking. If someone is infected, they can easily spread these deadly droplets from one person to the next, and socially distancing helps to prevent this from happening. Social distancing is important for people who are at high risk of contracting the virus, such as the elderly, and people with preexisting health conditions.
The Steps Necessary to Stay Safe While Social Distancing
Get Go ranks the top best ways to stay safe while social distancing to keep you and your loved ones safe!
There’s nothing more important now than making sure you are staying a safe distance from people you may not now, and even staying socially distant from family and friends in order to keep them safe as well. Sometimes social distancing may not be enough and you may have to be in close knit quarters with people you may not know, especially if you live in a heavily populated city. It is important to continue the practice of social distancing, but it is also important to practice other methods of safety while also staying a safe distance from people.
1. Wear a Face Mask
Besides social distancing and staying a safe and healthy distance from family members, friends, or even complete strangers, it is also important to wear a face mask. Face masks are essential now more than ever due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and they help to keep everyone around you safe. Face masks help to prevent tiny droplets that come from coughing, sneezing, and talking from spreading and infecting the people around you. It is recommended to wear face masks on public transportation, in stores, restaurants, and even large gatherings to slow the spread of the virus from person to person.
2. Choose Safe Social Activities
The COVID-19 pandemic is a time where seeing friends and family may be difficult. From being worried about spreading the virus to a loved one and getting them sick, it is important to remain socially distancing to protect your loved ones. In this case, we believe that the best way to interact and see your loved ones is by choosing activities where you can continue to practice physical distancing.
You can use FaceTime, or other video chat applications to talk to your loved ones, host movie viewings on video chat, or small yard or driveway gatherings are acceptable activities to participate in while remaining socially distant from one person to the next. For yard and driveway gatherings, continue to practice social distancing and wear a mask when not around people from your household.
3. Use Alternatives For Shopping
When shopping for household items such as food, water, cleaning supplies, and other necessities, it is important that you are in stores in person for only a short time while maintaining social distancing while looking in aisles, and in the check out line. If you want a safer alternative to shopping in person, many places offer drive-thru, curbside pickup, or even delivery to limit face-to-face contact with people that you don’t know to avoid coming in contact with COVID-19. Make sure that if you’re shopping in person to practice effective mask wearing and proper hand washing hygiene as well.
4. Practice Social Distancing While Being Active Outdoors
While we are being isolated in our homes due to the spread of COVID-19, it is important to exercise whenever you can. Exercising is essential to staying healthy and fit, and while many gyms are closed down, or slowly reopening, a safe alternative that you can try is exercising outside.
While you are exercising, it is important to socially distance from people in your neighborhood though. If you can, wear a mask at all times while walking, jogging, or even biking past people on the sidewalk, or find a secluded area with little to no people where you can exercise if you are doing strenuous workouts that make it difficult to wear a mask. Going to a nearby park, trail, or recreational facility is perfect to make sure you get your daily workout in while staying socially distant from the people around you.
5. No Matter How You’re Travelling, Create a PPE Kit to Keep With You
Before you leave the house to run errands, make sure you think about how you’re getting to your destination. Whether it’s by driving, taking a taxi, riding the bus, or even taking a subway or any other form of transportation, it is important to seriously consider the risks that come with it. One thing that you can do to protect yourself while you’re out and about using public transportation, or even your own, is creating your own personal protective equipment kit, or PPE kit, to take with you to keep you safe.
PPE kits are full of essential items that can protect you from viruses, diseases, harmful bacteria, chemicals, and many other substances that can be detrimental to your health. For a PPE kit essential for the COVID-19 pandemic, you should always have a face mask, hand sanitizer, gloves, antibacterial wipes, and anything else that you can think of to help prevent you from getting the virus.
Why is it Important to Social Distance Yourself From Others?
Keep yourself and others protected from the deadly COVID-19 virus to save lives!
Social distancing is extremely important during the COVID-19 pandemic and it is crucial that everyone follows it in order to stay safe and protect the lives of others. By easily wearing a face mask and social distancing, you can play your part in helping to save thousands of lives by limiting the spread of the virus that has growing numbers throughout the world.
If you feel sick, make sure to stay at home and even get tested for COVID-19 if you are afraid that you have contracted it. COVID-19 is easily spread from person to person and while it is the easiest way to spread the virus, it can also be airborne through droplets that people can release from sneezing, coughing, and talking, and it can also be spread from touching contaminated surfaces.
COVID-19 is no joke and people should be taking the necessary precautions in order to protect themselves and others from contracting the virus. Social distancing is among one of the top most crucial and effective ways to protect yourself and others, along with wearing a face mask, and practicing your hand washing techniques. With social distancing, you will still be able to see family members by using safe social alternatives such as video chat, use alternatives when it comes to face-to-face shopping, and even just taking into consideration how you travel everyday can help you avoid contracting COVID-19 and keep your loved ones safe.
