Pool Noodle Hats To Robots: People Get Creative To Ensure Social Distancing

As Germany began to ease lockdown restrictions, a cafe came up with a way to enforce social distancing that has left social media users chuckling. The cafe, located in Schwerin, handed out hats with swimming pool noodles taped onto them to make sure that guests maintained a safe distance from each other while enjoying their meal.

Social distancing is being adopted as the new normal around the world, with public health agencies advising people to maintain a distance of three to six feet from others in order to contain the spread of coronavirus. 

Customers sitting outside Cafe & Konditorei Rothe were therefore photographed wearing colourful pool noodles strapped onto straw hats as they enjoyed their food. The photo, shared by the cafe on Facebook, shows two groups of customers sitting at separate tables wearing the hats.

Since being shared on Sunday, the photograph has collected over 1,400 'shares' and hundreds of amused comments, with many praising the creative idea.

This is not the first time that people have used hats to ensure social distancing. Students at a school in China were filmed wearing headgear with long horizontal plumes extending out to maintain social distancing. The school allowed students to wear the cardboard hats to remind them to keep their distance from each other. 

First graders back to school in Hangzhou, with social distancing headgear

The long horizontal plumes on Song Dynasty toppers were supposedly to prevent officials from conspiring sotto voce with one another while at court—so social distancing was in fact their original function! pic.twitter.com/0AOKsWE1xH

— eileen chengyin chow (@chowleen) April 27, 2020

In Tamil Nadu, meanwhile, a man sent his robot to shop for him in order to maintain social distancing. According to news agency AFP, The humble machine -- a cardboard box resting on a four-wheel wooden platform -- took the computer engineer two days to make and cost Rs 3,000. But it is performing a crucial job for its creator at a time when social interactions carry the risk of catching a virus that has infected more than four million people and killed over 2,97,000 worldwide.

Singapore authorities also enlisted the help of a robot to ask people to stay apart at public places. A remote-controlled robot dog was recently deployed in a central park to ask joggers and cyclists to stay apart.

According to the World Health Organization, social distancing involves maintaining a distance of 3 to 6 feet from anyone who is coughing or sneezing, as the highly infectious novel coronavirus spreads through droplets. "When someone coughs or sneezes they spray small liquid droplets from their nose or mouth which may contain virus. If you are too close, you can breathe in the droplets, including the COVID-19 virus if the person coughing has the disease," the organisation explains on its website.