Covid-19: Inventive social distancing around the world

In Portugal, a nursing home is using a crane to allow families to visit loved ones confined within the building.

In Canada, one Ontario resident has invented a "hug glove" to embrace her mother on Mother’s Day.

In India, a mechanic has invented a novel way to get around during the coronavirus crisis by building a motorbike where the passenger sits more than a metre away from the driver.

“I thought: ‘How can I take my daughter to school when it re-opens, while maintaining social distancing on a bike?’" Partha Saha told AFP.

“That’s when I was struck with this idea that I can extend a bike in such a way that my daughter can ride as a passenger, but more than one metre away from me.”

The hospitality sector has been particularly hard hit by the crisis.

With a view to soon reopening bars and restaurants, one Spanish entrepreneur has come up with the idea of using perspex partitions and temperature-checking cameras to keep customers safe.

A German bar, meanwhile, is using a less sophisticated method, offering customers hats fitted with swimming pool floats to maintain social distancing.

And in the Netherlands, the restaurant of an Amsterdam arts centre has installed miniature greenhouses for a secure dining experience

“Corona now forces us to rethink how we can do hospitality. Also actually all the other things in our art centre have to be reconsidered but serving food is one of our programmes,” Willem Velthove, director of Mediametic art centre, told AFP.

"We thought: ‘Ok let's try what happens if we sit in these small places, does it feel good and can we serve in a safe way?’And it goes quite well actually."