Social Distancing Calculator (Coronavirus)
Work out roughly how many people can occupy a room or outdoor space while staying a set distance apart, based on the area available and your chosen spacing rule.
What this calculator does
This tool gives a rough, practical estimate of how many people can occupy a space while keeping a chosen distance apart from one another — the kind of spacing guidance widely recommended during respiratory illness outbreaks such as COVID-19 (commonly 1.5 to 2 metres, or about 6 feet).
How the calculation works
Each person is treated as the centre of a personal-space circle whose radius is half of the required distance, so that any two people are automatically at least the full distance apart. Circles of that size can cover, at best, about 90.7% of a flat area when packed in the most efficient hexagonal arrangement — a well-known result from circle-packing geometry. The calculator divides your usable floor area by the area each person’s circle effectively occupies to estimate a practical maximum headcount.
The “usable floor space” percentage lets you account for furniture, aisles, fixtures, and irregular room shapes that reduce the area actually available for people to stand or sit in.
- Room / Space Area: the total floor area of the room or outdoor space.
- Required Distance: the minimum spacing you want to maintain between people.
- Usable Floor Space: the percentage of that area actually free for people (lower it for cluttered or irregular rooms).
This is a general planning estimate only, not a substitute for official public health guidance, fire-code occupancy limits, or professional venue safety assessments.