It’s a particularly big problem for workers in the UK’s largest cities.

One recent report warned that maintaining a 2m (6ft 6in) distance between Tube passengers in London, for example, would reduce its capacity to 15% of normal levels, and buses to 12%.

But if more people take to the streets, will the road network cope?

“If in big cities we are to have a radical shift to bicycles, scooters, other ways of getting about, that would require a sudden and radical change in road use,” said Prof Tony Travers from the London School of Economics.

“You have to move people quickly through streets and the easiest place to do that is main roads. But they are used by buses, taxis, delivery vehicles and other essential vehicles. Changing road use doesn’t happen quickly.”

The use of public transport would also need to be staggered, with “rush hour peaks” lasting perhaps for five-hour stretches, and spaces being allocated, Prof Travers suggested.

Previous experience suggests this would not be an easy change to bring about.

“Public transport operators have spent decades trying to get users to spread the rush hour,” he said.

“It would be hard to do this voluntarily. You would have to have some degree of people, in effect, being allocated slots.”

It would also have knock-on consequences for other aspects of daily life.

“Will cafes, bars and restaurants need relaxed licensing laws so they can be open for longer? How about parents with children who need to collect them from school?” he said.

“It has profound implications for how businesses work.”

So - what is the best alternative?
Electric scooters

They’re largely banned on UK public roads and pavements, but e-scooter sales have doubled year-on-year for Somerset-based retailer Pure Electric.

It sold 135 e-scooters in a single day last week, and 11,500 last year.

“Electrification is coming - it’s a low cost, low impact transport,” says chief executive Adam Norris. His firm also sells e-bikes.

Mr Norris’s UK-wide best-selling e-scooter is the M365 from Chinese budget brand Xiaomi.

They have a speed cap of 15km/h (10mph) and he suggests they’re ideal for journeys of around two to four miles, with e-bikes taking a slightly longer haul.

E-scooters are a common sight in many cities around the world including Paris and LA but officially in the UK they are only allowed on private land.
Image copyright Pure Electric
Image caption Adam Norris says e-scooter sales have doubled year-on-year

The government was planning a public consultation prior to the pandemic but campaigners have long warned of the dangers to both pedestrians and riders.

In 2019 TV presenter Emily Hartridge, 35, was riding an electric scooter when she was killed in a collision with a lorry in south London.

However, Mr Norris thinks a change in the law is “logical” following the rise in consumer demand, and he believes that with sensible precautions such as high-vis clothing and newer models with larger wheels to tackle potholes, safety can be improved.

“Safety is important,” he said. “But if they limit all e-scooters to the same speed as electric bikes, what’s the difference?”

Analyst Carolina Milanesi, from Creative Futures, thinks even with the right legislation in place, people may be less likely to want to hire electric vehicles, a service offered by firms like Lime and Bird.

“I am not sure if e-bikes and scooters are necessarily the way people will go unless they invest in them themselves, rather than using hire services which would require them to clean them when they get them,” she said.
Take your own car

Anthony Eskinazi runs the platform Just Park, which lets people offer their parking spaces up for rent. He says the firm is considering turning its own 300 car parks into storage for scooters and bikes.
Image copyright Getty Images

He believes “the balance between congestion and convenience” may mean car owners won’t want to use individual vehicles for very long once traffic builds up.

“I think parking demand will surge after lockdown but it won’t be sustainable,” he said.

“People want a real alternative now. If the government can facilitate it we will see a boom in micro-mobility.”
Get a cab

By its own admission, lockdown has proved to be a challenging time for Uber, which says it is now “preparing for the next phase of recovery”.
Image copyright Getty Images

It is supplying PPE gloves and masks to all its drivers and is considering calls to pay them a small fee if they take time out between passengers to clean their vehicle interiors.

“I do wonder what the impact on Lyft and Uber will be,” said Carolina Milanesi.

“What will these companies have to disclose to grow trust that the driver or the passenger is safe?”

Uber might adapt a newly launched driver ID tool to ask drivers to upload selfies to prove they are wearing masks at work, it said.

The firm is also developing its own driverless car - but it was only allowed back on the roads in California two months ago following a fatal crash in 2018.
Drone taxis

If all else fails, how about a flying taxi?
Image copyright Getty Images
Image caption The Volocopter is one of hundreds of eVTOL aircraft under development

You might have problems hailing one. There are 175 drone taxi designs floating around (sorry) but as yet no regular service in any one country.

“I have been watching empty buses drive past for the last few weeks, and every time I think of how great it would be to provide small-scale public transport with robot taxis,” says Dr Steve Wright, associate professor in aerospace engineering at the University of the West of England.

"I really want these taxis to be flying ones too, but I think I am going to have to wait, as the coronavirus is probably going to hinder the Evtol [vertical take off and landing] revolution more than encourage it.

“The meltdown going on in the airlines is probably going to drag down the whole aviation industry.”

During a recent video-conference, MP Julie Elliott made a plea to the culture secretary for a faster rollout of fibre broadband for her Sunderland constituents. As she was doing so, her own broadband connection failed, something the chairman of the DCMS committee described as “ironic”.

In theory, 95% of premises should be able to access superfast broadband but take-up of services remains low. This might be because people find their current speed sufficient for their needs, do not want to pay or simply haven’t got round to upgrading.

For those wanting to upgrade now, there could be a wait. BT told the BBC is was prioritising new broadband connections for the “vulnerable and those most in need”.

According to Ofcom, 189,000 properties are on speeds of 10Mbps (megabits per second) download and 1Mbps upload or less - for both fixed and wireless.

Adelana Carty, broadband expert at Uswitch.com, thinks it is too low for lockdown. "Some video-calling services say they only require broadband speeds of 1.2Mbps, but at this level the picture quality is likely to be extremely patchy and the audio may cut in and out - especially if there are many people on the call.

"Streaming TV services like Netflix say you need a 3Mbps connection for standard quality, and 5Mbps for HD, but you’re likely to find that the picture is constantly buffering at these speeds.

"Connection issues also arise when multiple devices use the internet simultaneously, so if required, it may be worth setting up a rota, especially when it comes to streaming or gaming online.
Image copyright Sam Kirkpatrick
Image caption On Sam Kirkpatrick’s street internet services are painfully slow

Such a rota may be the only option for Sam Kirkpatrick, who lives in rural Northern Ireland, and who says the idea of sharing the internet with his wife and two teenagers is “simply out of the question”.

"On a good day, my broadband runs at about 2Mbps (not a typo - I genuinely mean two). I’ve seen various fibre rollout plans over the years and my postcode has been included but we’ve not been upgraded yet.

“We have paid for an additional 4G service for a couple of years now, which is much faster when it works but much less reliable and more prone to contention/packet dropping than the fixed line. The quality of it has definitely degraded noticeably since lockdown started.”

Without it the family would “be in trouble”, he said, but it does mean expensive monthly bills.

Mr Kirkpatrick is a software engineering manager, and is now working from home full-time.

“Much of my role is video calls and it struggles a bit at that stage. Often, I’ll have to disable video and rely on audio only to save bandwidth. Or even forget about the calls and try to use messaging instead, which just isn’t the same. Downloading large payloads, which I have to do often, is a challenge.”
Image copyright Oleksandr Pupko
Image caption One superfast broadband user told the BBC he should be getting speeds of up to 100Mbps but often got just 25Mbps according to speed tests

The others in the house have to rely on the 4G.

"This gets us by for schoolwork and my wife’s work. Even then, we’re limited to maybe one person streaming at any one time.

“It’s a regular occurrence in our house to hear shouted: ‘Can everybody stop using the internet for a while, please?’ so someone can download something or watch a video. On occasion, you do just have to give up and try again later or forget about it.”
‘Missing out on the craic’

The BBC was also contacted by a woman, living in a similar part of the world. She wanted to remain anonymous but pointed out that it was not just work and schooling that was affected by poor connectivity.

“Internet accessibility is difficult in rural Northern Ireland at the best of times but in lockdown with increased usage and reliance on the internet, connecting with family and friends is tough and we sometimes have to miss out on the craic because the infrastructure just isn’t there,” she said.

“It’s an additional and unnecessary strain on mental health and wellbeing when we are being asked to distance ourselves for the greater good.”

And it is not just rural locations that are suffering. Even in a city like London, people can experience problems.
Tips for improving speed

• where possible do not use wi-fi - connect devices with an ethernet cable
  configure the router to use different names for the two frequencies, 2.4GHz and 5GHz, and then re-teach devices the credentials for the 5GHz

• check the location of the router - if it is buried on a bookcase, surrounded by books the clutter could block the signal

• microwave ovens interfere with wi-fi signal so don’t cook a microwave lunch while on a Zoom call

• if everyone is trying to access the internet, consider investing in a wi-fi booster that allow the signal to travel further

• mesh network add-ons may improve coverage but usually carry a monthly subscription

• don’t move your office to a quiet part of the house without checking the speeds first, using an online speed checker

• if speed generally is significantly lower than the speed you were promised, phone your provider to argue the case for an upgrade

• download films to phones and tablets, ideally just before bed when not everyone is using the internet

Jack Maddox recently moved into a flat in the technology hub of Shoreditch, east London but says the best connection he could get installed was 15Mbps, on offer from Sky.

“It regularly sits in the seven to 10 range. I couldn’t believe the lack of fibre options after moving into this relatively new flat,” he told the BBC.

“It makes trying to do client video calls or even ones to family and friends infuriating. I often end up moving closer to the window and tethering my phone, which isn’t great either.”

For some though, internet speed is not a problem at all. Jersey already offers full fibre to all homes and now its internet providers have decided to upgrade everyone to 1Gbps (gigabit per second), entirely free of charge “for the duration of the pandemic”.