In a fascinating white paper, Bert Blocken, Professor of Civil Engineering at Eindhoven University of Technology, comments on social distancing when applied to walking, running or cycling. His point is that the government recommendations to maintain a distance of 1.5 or 2 metres assume people are standing still indoors or outdoors in calm weather. However, when a person is moving, the majority of particulate droplets are swept along in a trailing slipstream.
Cyclists typically prefer to ride closely behind each other, in order to benefit from the aerodynamic drafting effect. Cycling is currently a permitted form of exercise in the UK, though only if riding alone or with members of your household. Nevertheless, there may be times when you find yourself catching up with a cyclist ahead. In this situation, you should avoid the habitual tendency to move up into the slipstream of the rider in front.
Professor Blocken’s team has performed computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations showing the likely spread of micro-droplets behind people moving at different speeds. As the cloud of particles, produced when someone coughs or sneezes, is swept into the slipstream, the heavier droplets, shown in red in the diagram above, fall faster. These are generally thought to be more considerably more contagious. You can see that they can land on the hands and body of the following athlete.
Based on the results, Blocken advises to keep a distance of at least four to five meters behind the leading person while walking in the slipstream, ten meters when running or cycling slowly and at least twenty metres when cycling fast.Social Distancing v2.0
The recommendation, for overtaking other cyclists, is to start moving into a staggered position some twenty metres behind the rider in front, consistently avoiding the slipstream as you pass.
The results will be reported in a forthcoming peer-reviewed publication. But given the importance of the topic, I recommend that you take a look at the highly accessible three page white paper available here.