Since the appearance of coronavirus, Italy, Spain, Germany, the USA, China, the UK, Iran, and South Korea have been severely affected compared to other countries.
The specialists told us the reasons for the high death rates: the aged population and the different health conditions the people already had. Still, not many have focused on highlighting the reason for such a high rate of transmission of the virus in some countries.
In this article, we intend to show the importance of the social distance in the transmission of the coronavirus based on Italy, Spain, Germany, the USA, China, Iran and South Korea cases.
How are viral diseases transmitted?
The viruses, unlike bacteria, are transmitted through direct contact (with an infected person or contaminated object/surface) or through aerosols created when a person sneezes or coughs. Transmission is one of the essential factors in spreading the disease. Because the symptoms appear long after the infection, or sometimes they don’t appear at all, the virus may be quickly spread, given the social habits like greetings, social distance, customs, and the totality of traditions of a country.
Social distance played an important role in spreading the Ebola virus in 2014 and the flu in each season. This is why many specialists recommend social distancing.
Still, the high efficiency of social distancing seems to be difficult to apply because of the social habits which are hard to change, especially in the case of “Mediterranean societies that prefer close interactive distances than northern European and northern American societies”(Evans, Howard, 1973).
Thus, we can see that social distance is one of the key reasons why Italy, Germany, Spain, and the USA are among the most affected countries by coronavirus. We compared the social distances of 42 countries according to a psychology study made in 2017 on 8543 people. As a result, we found out that Italy, Spain, Germany, and the USA are in the top 15 countries with the smallest social distance. For example, in Italy, the social distance is around 91cm, while at the opposite pole in Romania is 135cm. This distance is applied to strangers, but when it comes to known and well-known people, the distance is even smaller. In Italy, we have a 65 cm distance to a known person and 35 cm with a well-known one. In the USA, Germany, and Spain, the situation is similar.
Figure 1: Mean values (cm) of social, personal and intimate distance across all nations
Source: Sorokowska A., Sorokowski P., Hilpert P. and others, 2017, Figure 2.
Thus, Italy, Spain, the USA, and Germany have societies with a small social distance that encourages the virus to spread, but what about other countries like China, Iran, and South Korea?
In these countries, the social distance is much bigger. So what caused the virus to spread? To understand that we look at the population density and how it reduces the social distancing.
China is a country with agglomerated cities like Hong Kong, Wuhan, Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Shenzhen and others, where the population density is very high. For example in Hong Kong it equals to 6791 people on a km 2, Shanghai = 6000 people/km2, Wuhan 5300 people/ km2, Beijing = 4500 people/km2, Tianjin = 4600 people/km2, Shenzhen = 7500 people/km2, etc. Therefore, in such a dense space, the preference for social distance is prevailed by the urban agglomeration.
In South Korea, the virus got in Daegu first and spread in Seoul where the population density exceeds 17 000 people/km2 and other cities like Busan with 12 000 people/km2 and Incheon with 7 200 people/km2 and other cities.
The same situation is in Iran where cities like Tehran have a population density of 9 799 people/ km2, Mashhad = 6 573 people/ km2, Isfahan = 2 808 people/ km2 and Karaj = 8 939 people/ km2.
We see that in the European countries, the virus spreading was encouraged by a small social distance that is characteristic to their national culture. In the Asian continent, the spread was encouraged by the small social distance given the cities agglomeration.
Antecedents in viral spreading
We identify the social distance as one of the basic factors that, together with other factors like hygiene, cultural habits and even the weather, sustained the coronavirus spread.
Another proof that the social distance is the reason for viral spread is the historical records of viral infection spreading. The same countries recorded a high number of deaths after flu infections. For example, in the 2019-2020 flu season, the USA registered 22 000 deaths, 370 000 hospitalizations and 36 million infected people. Italy, between 2013 and 2017, registered 68 000 deaths of flu. Only in October 2019, there were recorded over 2 million people infected with flu viruses and 240 deaths. Germany registered 236 deaths from flu in 2018 and 24 000 infected people. Spain registered 421 deaths from flu between 2016 and 2017.
These records highlight a similar spread of viruses in society, the difference now is that the coronavirus is much more problematic because of the serious complications it causes and because we do not have yet effective and safe methods to fight with it.
The solution, for now, seems to be self-isolation, but what about the next flu season when the coronavirus is expected to reappear? Do we isolate again? Repeat the scenario? Or do we change our habits (how close we stay to a person, how often we wash our hands, how we act when we are sick, etc.)?
In such times, when the international borders don’t have much importance and when multiculturality, tourism and easy movement is a part of our lives, it would be better to change our habits and increase the social distance for our safety.
There is no reason for panic, but there is a good reason for change.
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