Experts Disagree About the Benefit of Social Distancing
By Bill Sikora
June 8, 2020

Meriam-Webster's definition of social distancing: "the practice of maintaining a greater than usual physical distance (such as six feet or more) from other people or of avoiding direct contact with people or objects in public places during the outbreak of a contagious disease in order to minimize exposure and reduce the transmission of infection..."

The idea if social distancing came from a high school science project conducted by a 15 year old Albuquerque high school sophomore Laura Glass. She was helped by her scientist dad, Robert Glass, who worked with computer models. After 9/11, President George W. Bush was concerned about what could be done about pandemics if there were no cures available. He circulated a request to find a solution. Robert Glass, who worked at Sandia National Laboratories, received a call from Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff. He used his daughters science project to send reports to the president. Based on these reports, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention made social distancing - called Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions, or NPIs - official U.S. policy in February 2007.

Jeffrey Tucker wrote an informative article posted in the American Institue for Economic Research, aka AIER, titled The 2006 Origins of the Lockdown Idea. Here are points made in the article:

  1. "...neither legal nor economic experts were brought in to consult and advise" in making the decision about social distancing.
  2. Social distancing would "...result in significant disruption of the social functioning of communities and result in possibly serious economic problems..."
  3. "There are no historical observations or scientific studies that support the confinement by quarantine of groups of possibly infected people for extended perions in order to slow the spread of influenza. ..."
  4. For these and other reasons, he concluded that the decision was not based on science.

A featured article from the Ron Paul Institute by Jeff Harris The 'Science' Behind Social Distancing. refutes the science behind Laura Glasses project. He states it does not take into consideration herd immunity in which healthy people build up antibodies. Many experts believe herd immunity is the best way to fight viral infections, and only the sick and elderly should be isolated.