Social Distancing: Six Feet Not Far Enough for Safety

Author: Ian C. Langtree - View Credentials
Published: 6 Apr 2020 - Updated: 17 Dec 2025
Publication Type: Opinion Piece, Editorial

Table of Contents:
Synopsis - Overview - Insights, Updates - Related Content

Synopsis

This opinion piece examines research from aerosol scientists at major institutions - including MIT, Stanford, and Portland State University - challenging the adequacy of the six-foot social distancing guideline. The article synthesizes findings from studies published in peer-reviewed journals like the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and the Journal of the American Medical Association, demonstrating that virus-carrying droplets can travel 20 to 26 feet and remain suspended in air for 8 to 14 minutes through normal breathing, talking, coughing, and sneezing. For people with disabilities, seniors, and those managing chronic health conditions who faced heightened vulnerability during the pandemic, understanding the actual transmission distances was critical information for making informed decisions about outdoor activity and proximity to others - knowledge that went well beyond official government guidelines.

Overview

Studies, coupled with the high number of potentially asymptomatic people, have prompted the U.S. CDC to recommend that all Americans wear cloth masks in public.

"There are micro-droplets, and they can stay in the air for a while," said Dr. Scott Miscovich with Hawaii's coronavirus task force.

Global experts in aerosol science are also alarmed that current guidelines and regulations, which include the six-foot rule, may not be enough to keep people safe in public settings. Lydia Bourouiba, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor, contends that those recommendations may need to push another 20-plus feet.

A new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) found that even the simple act of talking can produce hundreds of tiny droplets that can potentially carry viruses and remain in the air from 8 -14 minutes.

Richard Corsi, a Portland State University dean, has also studied the spread of COVID-19 through both large and tiny droplets in the air and recommends people stay 20 feet away from each other when they're outdoors. If an oncoming hiker coughs just before you pass, "you're probably walking through a cloud of viruses that stay suspended in air," Corsi said.

Germs that carry viruses can travel much farther by simply breathing or talking. And, if the wind is blowing, it can travel even greater distances and blow right to you. In addition, pathogens, such as a sneeze cloud, could potentially reach air circulation systems inside buildings. Sampling has been done in air vents with positive virus detection.

"Aerosols - (micron-size droplets) - are different," says Dr. Stanley Deresinski, clinical professor of medicine and infectious diseases at Stanford University. "Tiny particles may be suspended in the air for long, sometimes for hours. Air currents suspend them."

A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that under the right conditions, liquid droplets from sneezes, coughs, and just exhaling can travel more than 26 feet - and linger in the air for minutes.

Hypothetical Examples of 6-Foot Rule Not Being Far Enough

• 1 - Imagine you are out walking and staying six feet from a person, or persons, walking in front of you. It is quite easy to see that should a person in front of you be smoking and exhaling; you are breathing in that exhaled smoke within a second or two as you move into the space the person has just vacated. The faster people are walking, the quicker you will be breathing in their exhaled air.
• 2 - Imagine if you are a bicycle rider following another rider on a bike track. Within a fraction of a second, you will have inhaled the air just exhaled a split second ago from their lungs!
• 3 - While you are out walking and a car passes - the car disturbs the air around it - causing eddies and currents of air to wash over you; you are now covered in the air that walkers around you have breathed out - as they also are breathing YOUR exhaled air...

The World Health Organization (WHO) has reviewed transmission reports and says more peer-reviewed tests are needed before they change their social distancing guidelines...

The only sure way to prevent yourself from getting infected by COVID-19 is by staying indoors and away from other people. Go out only as needed for essential trips to collect food, medicine, or brief exercise.

Insights, Analysis, and Developments

Editorial Note: Four years into the COVID-19 pandemic, this article stands as a reminder that public health guidance often lags behind the science - and that questioning official recommendations isn't contrarian thinking but careful observation. The experts cited here weren't fringe voices but established researchers at respected institutions, yet their findings about extended transmission distances took months to filter into mainstream public guidance. For vulnerable populations who couldn't afford to wait for bureaucratic consensus, this kind of early reporting offered practical knowledge to make safer choices.

Author Credentials: Ian C. Langtree is a writer, editor, and the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Disabled World, which he established in 2004 as one of the longest-running independent resources for disability news and information. Over more than two decades, he has written and edited thousands of articles on disability rights, health, accessibility, and assistive technology. Drawing on a global perspective shaped by extensive travel and lived experience, Ian is a committed advocate of the Social Model of Disability, the framework developed by disabled activists in the 1970s that focuses on removing societal barriers rather than on individual impairments. His writing is grounded in that framework and in a lasting commitment to disability rights, accessibility, and social inclusion. To learn more about Ian's background, expertise, and accomplishments, visit his full biography.