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Who counts as part of your 'social bubble' in Denmark?

The Local Denmark
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Who counts as part of your 'social bubble' in Denmark?
People out in Copenhagen on Saturday night. Photo: Ólafur Steinar Rye Gestsson/Ritzau Scanpix

Denmark's infectious diseases agency, the SSI, recommended on Tuesday that people in the country should seek to limit their socialising to a 'social bubble' of between five and ten people. Here's what that actually means.

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Who counts as part of my social bubble? 
 
Anyone you live with, touch, hug, or sit close too on a daily basis. So that would include your partner and children, if they live with you, other close family if they spend time at your house, and your children's friends, if they come over to your house a lot. 
 
Once all of those people are counted, you might find have space for only a handful of your own friends. 
 
Do work colleagues and contacts count? 
 
Not unless you have an unusually tactile relationship with them, and if you do, probably time to keep a bit more distance than normal. 
 
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Should you formalise your social bubble? 
 
According to the Anders Fomsgaard, a virus researcher at Denmark's state infectious disease agency, you should agree together with the others in your bubble that you are in a bubble together. You should then all seek to avoid too close contact with others outside the bubble. 
 
"Everyone has to agree and you can only have one bubble. If there is one in this bubble that gets infected, then the whole bubble must isolate itself," he told state broadcaster DR in an interview. 
 
What if I want to go on a date, or go to a wedding? 
 
According to Fomsgaard, you should warn other people in your bubble, and perhaps even withdraw from the bubble for a period. He suggested holding meetings between members of the bubble to decide on how to act. 
 
How rigorously do we have to stick to this advice? 
 
Not very. The 'social bubble' recommendation is just a guideline, and there are no hard and fast rules. The most important thing from the agency's perspective is for as many people in Denmark as possible reduce their socialising until infection rates start to decline. 
 
 
 

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