Staying 6 Feet Apart Indoors Does Almost Nothing to Stop the Spread of COVID-19, MIT Study Finds

A new Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found staying six feet away from others indoors has little effect on the risk of exposure to COVID-19, reports Business Insider . The researchers said the rule is based on an outdated understanding of how the coronavirus spreads in closed spaces, while other factors — including the number of people in a space, whether they are masked, what they are doing, and the level of ventilation — were much more critical. The study suggests that making individual calculations based on variables for that space is a better approach for controlling indoor exposure. MIT professors Martin Bazant and John Bush devised a formula for estimating long it would take for someone to reach dangerous levels of exposure from one infected person entering a room. Based on this calculation, it could be that the exposure level remains high in some spaces, or lower than expected, even if people are more than six feet away. When the pandemic began, it was widely believed that the pathogen traveled via heavier droplets ejected during exhalation, sneezing, or speaking. However, evidence has long suggested that it instead drifts on lighter aerosol droplets that can stay suspended in air and travel much farther than first assumed.