I assumed it was new, created for the COVID-19 pandemic. But I was watching Contagion last night and in the movie they recommended social distancing. That movie is about 10 years old.
So hold is it? I’m not talking about the concept, I’m asking about the phrase.
So, it seems like the phrase was invented in 1957, and first used in it’s current form for the SARS outbreak of 2003
you know as an aside I saw that movie for the first time about a month ago and they did get a lot right about how covid 19 was treated, of course, I’m glad they got somethings wrong …like the food riots and the looting over the fake cure …
We’re not done yet. They did get the scammy fake ‘cures’ correct (although Soderburgh and screenwriter Scott Burns weren’t creative enough to imagine that it would be the US president promoting them) as well as stadiums being turned into hospitals, people dying while awaiting treatment, and the National Guard being called out, so they clearly did a lot of research not just about epidemiology but the attendant aspects of a serious global pandemic. The virologists on the This Week In Virology podcasts had some critical comments about the film but they mostly pertained to the speed at which the vaccine was developed and how the led developer ‘tested’ it (by injecting herself and then deliberately exposing herself by visiting her infected father), which were obviously done for drama and timing rather than literal accuracy. Then again, if someone made a documentary about our actual response to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and sent it back in time, it would at least be considered errant fearmongering and likely a Christopher Guest-esque mockumentary in which the United States hypothetically elects a game show host as president who suggests that we inject ourselves with bleach and UV light while medical authorities standing next to him remain silent. You can’t make this shit up.
As for “social distancing” it is, as the Guardian and Mother Jones articles indicate, a long-standing term in public health and epidemiology for the obvious reason that maintaining space and limiting close contact will obviously have a dramatic effect on limiting spread of the pathogen. Even airborne viruses just can’t survive that long in an outdoor ambient environment and can’t propagate without a host, which really makes it the key measure–along with travel restrictions, ventilation of indoor spaces, and limiting large group events–to stop pandemic spread. Earlier in the pandemic a number of virologists and epidemiologists started suggesting that we should use the term “physical distancing” because it is a more descriptive term without ambiguity over what is a “social” distance, but it is clear that a large number of people don’t care enough to maintain distance regardless of whether it is “social”, “physical”, or otherwise.
Nations that have done a good job of this like Australia, Iceland, and New Zealand have been able to get the caseload down to a point where they can do individual test and trace, allowing them to reduce restrictions and reopen their economy to a significant degree even without vaccination or achieving any theoretical herd immunity threshold. Nations which have not, like the UK, US, France, Sweden, and Netherlands, are seeing out of control contagion and attendant effects on their economies. So it goes.
Stranger
The 1957 use of the phrase had a different meaning; according to the OED it was “the action or practice of maintaining a degree of remoteness or emotional separation from another person or social group.” The current use of the phrase to mean “maintaining a certain physical distance from other people in order to avoid transmitting an infectious disease” seems to date from 2004. The OED’s earliest citation is:
2004 Detroit News (Nexis) 9 Dec. (Metro section) 1 c The best way to [a]void the flu is a wonderful term we call ‘social distancing’, which means basically to avoid being around other people.
I re-watched it a few months ago and was very impressed by how much it got right (and also noted the use of “social distancing”), although the disease was both more contagious and more deadly than Covid-19. (And it’s far better than Outbreak, which was ludicrous.)
As an aside, my second cousin was an advisor on the movie. Formerly the head veterinarian at the Bronx Zoo, she was responsible for identifying West Nile Fever when it first had an outbreak in the US.
It’s actually quite impressive how much they got right. About the only thing they missed was the toilet paper shortage!
I had this question about a year ago. While the Straight Dope is an excellent source for information, it is often easier and faster to go to Wikipedia. It turns out that Wikipedia has a page titled “Social distancing”, and it was created back in April 2017.
when i seen it it was in a 2 disc bluray set along with outbreak …
Of course I turn to Wikipedia quite a bit. But the huge advantage of asking here is that more often than not someone will add interesting and related facts that you won’t find in Wiki. I enjoy the conversation aspect.
Thanks for the link.