Social Distancing Rules: Bad Maths

In June 2020 the world was dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic and "social distancing" was a buzzword for the time: everyone had to stay a given distance away from each other to reduce the chances of catching the virus or passing it on to someone else. There was much debate as to what this distance actually should be and, in the lead up to the potential reopening of shops in the UK, on 5th June The Guardian published this article:

One of the illustrations from the Guardian article

Plans to reopen shops in England 'in chaos' over social distancing rules

Study finds 10 sq metres of space is required per shopper to stick to government’s 2-metre guidelines

Link: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jun/05/shops-reopen-england-social-distancing-rules-coronavirus

Maths teacher Mark Dawes found the original source for the mentioned study and wrote a critical piece about it and the article linked above, discovering and explaining some of the misconceptions and mistakes spanning both:

More than sums (blog) - Mathematically Distant: https://morethansums.blogspot.com/2020/06/mathematically-distant.html