Social distancing means to decrease your contact with the people you would normally hang out with, and avoiding places that are usually full of people. This is important because a virus like COVID-19 can spread quickly through touching an infected person's hand or saliva (e.g. when they sneeze or cough near you).
Social distancing will help to reduce your exposure to the virus if the people around you are not infected. Therefore, it's important to do the following:
- Call or send a message rather than meet in person.
- Avoid shaking hands, hugging or kissing - rather use your elbow to greet each other.
- Avoid visiting people or inviting visitors into your home.
- Stay at home as much as you can.
- Stay at home if you are sick.
- Use hand sanitizer and wash your hands regularly.
- Go to the shop when there are less people around (e.g. not in the morning or during lunch).
- Ask your client to move their booking time to later in the morning - this will allow you to travel when less people use public transport.
- Open the windows if you have to use public transport.