Background: https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2020/06/17/social-contact-covid-19-recovery/ https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2020/06/17/social-.

Background: https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2020/06/17/social-contact-covid-19-recovery/ https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2020/06/17/social-... > “Social contact” used to be something we didn’t have to think about. It was a byproduct of going to the store or the gym, often viewed as a positive byproduct. Since the start of COVID-19, it comes at a high price. Today, it can perhaps be compared to carbon emissions: an unwelcome byproduct of economic activity. One can lead to pollution; the other to infection. In economic terms, social contact has become a scarce resource. It has become the linchpin between managing infections and protecting the economy – it is what is driving up infection rates but is also needed for economic activity. By treating it as an economically scarce resource, it raises three critical questions that we began to address in the paper in a data-driven way: > How much room do we have to open the economy (“social contact budget”)? > How do we best spend the budget (“return on social contact”)? > How do we grow our social contact budget over time (“reducing cost of social contact”)?