Ho Ching takes to Facebook to urge everyone to practice social distancing

Singapore – The Prime Minister’s wife took to social media to repeatedly encourage everyone to “Mind the gap” and practice social distancing as Covid-19 confirmed cases in Singapore continue to rise.

On Friday (Mar 20), Ho Ching further explained the meaning of keeping a safe distance from others in a couple of Facebook posts.

The World Health Organization advises everyone to keep a one-metre distance to limit contamination risks amid the Covid-19 pandemic. “Instead of taking out a yardstick to measure the distance, we simply stretch out our hands towards each other,” Ms Ho advised. “If we cannot touch each other with our outstretched arms, we are more than 1 metre apart for most adults.”

As someone who has been closely monitoring the pandemic, the CEO of Temasek Holdings couldn’t reiterate enough the importance of minding the gap.

Ms Ho also gave a few examples of staying socially connected while practising social distancing. “Blow a flying kiss across the gap, do a tap dance and send it across the gap, do an air gap fist bump, stay out of physical touch but stay socially connected.”

For children, she noted that an arm’s length would not be enough, although “their cough and spittle are not as powerful as adults.” Ms Ho concluded that one adult’s arm plus one kid’s arm should be about one metre in length. Or they can stay two arms’ length from each other, said Ms Ho.

“If we are with a suspected case or someone is sick, we need to double the Safe Gap,” said Ms Ho. She suggested keeping a total three arm’s length apart from each other, which would be more or less two metres apart.

The PM’s wife illustrated that “if we do an air gap fist bump with outstretched arms, and another person can walk through the air gap of the 1st two air gap fist bumpers, without touching both bumpers, we would be 2 meters apart.”

So…Mind the Gap, Mind the Gap, said Ms Ho.

A member of the public asked how does the “gap stuff” work during commutes in buses or the MRT? Another netizen suggested to “alight and walk”. She included an example of Tokyo’s intricate subway system which had been revised into the “Tokyo Walking Subway” map to promote social distancing.

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