“The origin of the six-foot distancing recommendation is something of a mystery,” wrote the New York Times in March 2021, a year after the pandemic started. “When the virus first emerged, many experts believed that it was transmitted primarily through large respiratory droplets, which are relatively heavy. Old scientific studies, some dating back more than a century, suggested that these droplets tend not to travel more than three to six feet.”37 One senior HHS official told me that the six-foot recommendation was a compromise reached between the CDC and officials in the Office of Management
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