COVID Select Subcommittee Releases Dr. Fauci’s Transcript, Highlights Key Takeaways in New Memo

[Pommer]

While rules like "6 foot social distancing" and "restaurants can operate 20% capacity with tables a minimum of 10 feet apart" were pretty much arbitrary numbers and likely not based on any specific dataset, the underlying premise of "keeping your distance from someone who may be sick" was still an age-old valid premise, and I suspect they were wanting to put "hard numbers" on that was a means of making people conscience of keeping their distance from people who could be sick.

As another example. Handwashing with soap and warm water as a means of reducing the spread of certain pathogens is/was certainly a valid well-accepted premise, however tossing in somewhat arbitrary things like "it has to be for the duration of the happy birthday song" were an arbitrary modification on that.

I think some aspects of making recommendations as to what the general populace “can do”, is partly just so much “busy work”…people tend to want to “do their part” and if there isn’t guidance as to what that might entail they’ll get frustrated with the people who are supposed to recommend “things to do, to do your part”.

For health officials it’s a no-win situation, telling the people to mask and maintain a certain distance can get reactions as we all witnessed and not telling us to do anything seems like they’re ignoring us.