By Manel Kappagoda, Sabrina Adler, Rebecca Johnson, and Patrick Glass, ChangeLab Solutions, March 2020
COVID-19, a type of coronavirus, is an extremely serious threat to public health and safety in the United States. Responding adequately and quickly to this pandemic can help save the lives of millions of Americans.
The most crucial intervention for preventing the spread of COVID-19 is widespread social distancing, which has been recommended or ordered by public health authorities at all levels of government: federal, state, tribal, territorial, and local. Social distancing is a common public health control measure, especially during outbreaks of communicable disease.
This blog post introduces important information about social distancing and discusses the legal authority for implementing social distancing as a mitigation measure to reduce infectious disease transmission in US communities. The concluding section discusses the implications of social distancing for health equity and the need to ease the burdens of social distancing on underserved communities.
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