Social Distancing: The New Normal
Human are social beings and need to socialize but for the last few months, we have been living in a new and acute state of fear as COVID-19 has threatened and continues to threaten the globe. Living with the corona virus has also taught us new tricks, pushing us to come up with new ways of shopping, work, learning, socializing, queuing, praying, playing, and even how to move and interact with one another.
Social distancing prevents us from infection of COVID-19 even if we are not in lockdown. Social distancing is nothing but a distance of 2 yard or 6 feet that is to be maintained between 2 people. Earlier people have to be reminded again and again to follow social distancing but now it’s a habit for people. During lockdown social distancing was applied at grocery stores and other essential services but as unlock to lockdown is happening, people are returning back to their jobs and social distancing has become a new normal. Even with COVID-19, the world is going back to normal with certain new rules like following social distancing, wearing masks, sanitizing hands time and again, sanitization and most important a contact less life.
People are very concerned to make things contact-less and maintain social distance. Now restaurants, school, offices, metro, railways, etc. are opening back with various measures to follow social distancing and sanitisation. For example, in Ransäter, Sweden a pop-up restaurant, named Bord for En (Table for One), doesn’t have waiters. The food kept in a basket, is served from the kitchen through a pulley. An eatery in Thailand has plastic barriers to maintain social distancing. Even in some places human waiters are replaced with robots. Display mannequins are placed between customers at the Cafe Livres in Essen, Germany. The cafe set the dolls as placeholders on various places for more distance between customers due to the new coronavirus orders for restaurants and cafes and to ensure that people doesn’t feel lonely.
Similarly in schools, various measures like marking alternative seat with a cross, putting foldable glass sheet around each students desk, reducing percentage of children in a class to half etc. are taken to maintain social distance.
In public places signs on floor are drawn to ensure social distancing. On those signs the language written is more friendly and there is even a bit space for humor but words such as ‘stop’ and ‘go’ are not used as it is more abrupt language and people often doesn’t follow then.
At all places social distancing measures are taken be it a salon, grocery shop, factories, movie theater, mall, offices,etc.
Ultimately, this form of living has become ‘the new normal’, rather than achieving normalcy as before COVID-19.
“Distance means so little, when life means so much”
Thank you!
